mills

My name is Mills Baker; I write about love, culture, art, religion, mental illness, philosophy, memory, politics and the rather random.

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I Aren't.

Can anyone explain the logic -not the precedent- of changing how we conjugate the verb ‘to be’ when speaking interrogatively? We say, “I’m tall, aren’t I?” Or “I’m your partner, aren’t I?” We do not say “I’m tall, am I not?” and I don’t know why.

The asymmetry of it bothers me enormously, to say nothing of the fact that if we expand the contraction we’ve said, “I am tall, are I not?”

Is it merely that the colloquialism (or malapropism) is preferable to sounding pretentious? Any ideas?

(This post is dedicated to my absolute idol Raynor Ganan, who likes it when I ask about problems I might research instead).

Update: many great answers in comments, reblogs, and notes! Superfluidity obtained from the brilliant scholar David Crystal this wonderfully comprehensive explanation.

Tags: grammar language aren't amn't
Notes
  1. loscheiner reblogged this from mills and added:
    wonder about this all...time: you are, i...not, i am not you...
  2. mollybierman reblogged this from mills
  3. es-san reblogged this from mills and added:
    My answer is not going to fit in 140 characters reason why I’m reblogging. Language is flexible consequently grammar is...
  4. pegobry answered: Grammar is arbitrary, it rarely has logic. And anyway, it’s shorter.
  5. lasaliente reblogged this from mills
  6. monkeytypist answered: It’s just that in the version of English that most of us speak, tag questions are formed with a contraction - it’s a rule.
  7. sylviac reblogged this from mills and added:
    English subjunctive.
  8. sylviac answered: One of my absolute favorite things in language: the English subjunctive!!!!!!
  9. John Levi Barnard answered: But, Mills, we DO say “am I not.” Do we not?
  10. singulus answered: It’s been all down-hill since Shakespeare, I suppose …
  11. squashed answered: What if ain’t stood in for am not and people tried to correct I’m tall, ain’t I? I don’t really know, though.
  12. tristn answered: langer’s right. “to be” verbs tend to be very irregular, as they are highly used.
  13. ragbag answered: my suspicion: that this is due to the convenience of the ‘are not’ contraction and there not being a similar ‘am not’ sub. let us coin: am’t!
  14. selfdoubt answered: Like much of the English language, slang and otherwise, logic has nothing to do with it. This is partly why I love it.
  15. inky answered: “Amn’t” is common in the otherwise ridiculous dialect of English we use in Ireland.
  16. fyeahgrammar reblogged this from mills
  17. ruined answered: actually, i use phrases like “im tall, am i not?” or “that’s quite attractive, is it not?” it is just the way i was taught to speak.
  18. gummoe answered: Yeah yeah, but language =\ logic. Just look at what happened to Russell.
  19. cholmes answered: I aren’t sure, really.
  20. danielholter answered: Um, this is ENGLISH we’re talking about, right?! Since when has it been logical & free of contradiction? :)
  21. talix18 answered: I’ve been using “amn’t”, the contraction of “am not”, for years. Which doesn’t answer your question.
  22. langer answered: “to be” is notoriously the most wildly irregular verb in every Indo-European language. It’s not surprising colloquialisms should follow suit.
  23. dhk answered: aint aint a word
  24. mills posted this