My nine year old nephew uses the term amn't a lot. When he first used it we were so impressed that his clever mind had come up with a contraction for 'am not'. Oh, we thought he was so clever to invent it, even if it weren't grammatically valid. For some reason I finally looked it up, and....WHAT?!?! It is an actual and valid contraction, though the pronunciation is different than how Jacob says it.
Main Entry: amn't
Pronunciation: \ˈänt, ˈant, ˈa-mənt\
Date: 1618
chiefly Scottish & Irish : am not
So, my new goal is to use the contraction when I have occasion. Wikipedia has a little to say on the subject. It is not only a contraction for "am not" but also "am I not".
Amn't I clever?
1 comment:
I don't actually use amn't, but I have noticed that the word *should* exist. (I realized we've compensated by contracting "I" and "am" rather than "am" and "not.") But I didn't realize it was missing until I was in college, so your nephew is way smarter than I. And I didn't know that it was listed in any dictionary, even as an archaic or provincial word. Or that it was probably the ancestor of the word "ain't." Thank you for the enlightenment!
I may join you in your introduction of this new-old word. We did that in one of my college linguistics classes -- came up with a new word and then the whole class tried to use the word as much as possible and see if it caught on on campus. Fun.
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