But neither logic nor great age plays a significant role in the labeling of variants. Consider 'ain't', which may be the English word most despised by schoolteachers and pundits. Far from being illogical or recent, 'ain't' is a legitimate phonological descendant of 'amn't', which was the original contraction of 'am not'. It isn't clear how 'ain't' fell into disrepute, but once there, it left an awkward gap in the system of negative contractions: We have "You're going, aren't you?", "She's going, isn't she?", and so on, but surely no real person actually says "I'm going, am I not?". Instead, people say "I'm going, aren't I?", in part because they have been taught to avoid 'ain't' like the plague; and here logic shudders, because while "You are going, She is going," etc., are fine, "I are going" is impossible for native speakers of English. The point of this example is not to urge rehabilitation of ain't'—legislating language change is generally a losing proposition—but to illustrate the linguistically arbitrary nature of social valuation of the results of language change.
But neither logic nor great age plays a significant role in the labeling of variants. Consider 'ain't', which may be the English word most despised by schoolteachers and pundits. Far from being illogical or recent, 'ain't' is a legitimate phonological descendant of 'amn't', which was the original contraction of 'am not'. It isn't clear how 'ain't' fell into disrepute, but once there, it left an awkward gap in the system of negative contractions: We have "You're going, aren't you?", "She's going, isn't she?", and so on, but surely no real person actually says "I'm going, am I not?". Instead, people say "I'm going, aren't I?", in part because they have been taught to avoid 'ain't' like the plague; and here logic shudders, because while "You are going, She is going," etc., are fine, "I are going" is impossible for native speakers of English. The point of this example is not to urge rehabilitation of ain't'—legislating language change is generally a losing proposition—but to illustrate the linguistically arbitrary nature of social valuation of the results of language change.
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