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From: crs@lanl.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.nlang,net.women
Subject: Re: Gender-Specific Pronouns (and "ain't")
Message-ID: <19506@lanl.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 14-Jan-85 15:42:47 EST
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Posted: Mon Jan 14 15:42:47 1985
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> > From sunny@sun.uucp (Sunny Kirsten) <1914@sun.uucp>
> > 
> > > Try using "their" whether referring to one generic person or many persons:
> > > it's easier to read than he/she or his/her, and is gender non-specific.
> > > 				Sunny
> > 
> > It's also grammatically incorrect and awkward.  To me, it's as bad as
> > using "Aren't I?" instead of "Am I not?"
> 
> It is NOT "grammatically incorrect."  That is a myth.  As someone
> mentioned earlier, you can look it ("they") up in the OED.
> 
> William Safire wrote an interesting essay on the grammatical
> appropriatness of "Ain't I?" (it came from a contraction
> of "Am not I?", necessarily interrogative).  But "ain't" is such
> a tainted word these days we will probably never bring it back.
> (Unfortunately I don't have this particular article of Safire's).
> 
> The story with "ain't" was that people were using ungrammatically
> ("ain't she sweet?") so our fearless defenders of the language,
> English teachers everywhere, eradicated its use by implying it
> was "grammatically incorrect", even when used correctly as
> "ain't I?".
> 
> The same fate might've become of "they" used with singular nouns
> if Jim Quinn hadn't rallied to it's cause and enlightened people
> of its HISTORIC use instead of letting self-appointed "defenders
> of the language" eradicate yet another useful word from our
> speech.
> 
> At some point you have to realize that grammar was a set of rules
> that someone came up with by EXAMINING HOW THE LANGUAGE IS USED,
> not by some abstract set of BNF charts that were logically
> consistent.  Grammar is not logically consistent.
> 
> I actually use "Aren't I?".  I only use "Am I not?" when I want to
> sound pompous.
> -- 
> Gordon A. Moffett		...!{ihnp4,hplabs,sun}!amdahl!gam

Let's all start using "ain't I" and revive this useful and
persecuted phrase.  Maybe we can start a *movement*...

Seriously, "ain't I" *works* better than anything the english
teachers would have us use.  Let's do it!

Charlie