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#1: Kristen Vognild (kristen) on Mar 4, 2011 [SPOILER]

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Thx Kristen,i thought it was different,i guess we can no longer quote to our kids,"don't say ain't, cause ain't, ain't in the dictionary".

Clever puzzle

THX Susan.

Nice puzzle. Use of the word "ain't" still shows a lack of intelligence or proper education in my eyes even if Webster condones it.

nice perspective

Thx Trish,i completely agree with you,yet you will find some of the most educated,and apparently intelligent people using(or should i say misusing) ain't and other slang words in their vocabulary on a frighteningly frequent basis.The english language can be such a pleasing language to listen to when spoken properly.I really like it when people use high faluten words.Oops excuse the pun.lol.

Love the story. Had trouble seeing the image. I thought it was a shield or Indian sign.

THX Blackcat,it's a w on one side and a d on the other.

What kind of grammar does one expect of a publisher who places the "W" on the back cover of his Webster's Dictionary?

I'm dyslexic.lol.

great image. We learned to say ain't when we moved here. With few outsiders, it's best to speak the local language.

THX Sarah,where were you from,is Andrews an english name.What a shame that you ended up talking like us intentionally or not.

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I now live in southern Missouri. My husband is from LA and I'm from Wash. DC. My husband is actually Portugese from the Azores but their name was Americanized from Andredas to Andrews. Ironically, my mother is British. I certainly agree with you that "ain't" ain't a real word - lol.

Sarah,is your mom in Britain now and is it pleasent to listen to her speak.

She lives in the US. I don't always hear her accent because she's my Mom but others always do. When she visits family in Britian, she returns home with a very strong accent and speaks English instead of American. I love British accents.

That's cool Sarah,i love British accents also,as well as Irish,Scottish,Aussie,French,Italian,and so on and so forth.Niki especially likes Irish and Australian.Speaking of Britain brings up another question,how come there are so many great bands that come from the U.K.?

I clicked on Jota's link to the dictionary and OMG how racist is that dictionary? I hear plenty of people using ain't who are not poor or black or uneducated. I am not any of those things and I tend to use ain't more when I am tired. It just pops out! I definitely used it more when I was younger. Sorry to add such a diatribe on the the puzzle, but the dictionary pissed me off!

I would be pissed too,everybody says ain't every now and then.

Dickens used "ain't," usually while writing dialogue for his Cockney characters, so it's been around for quite some time.

There are times when it's absolutely necessary to use the word. "That ain't right" cuts to the heart of the matter much more than "I am appalled by his actions." :)

"Corruption" of the language is not new. Imagine if Geoffrey Chaucer were re-incarnated and had a chat with us - he wouldn't be able to understand us. The language has changed so much since his time that we would not even seem to be uneducated people misusing the language to him. Shakespeare, on the other hand, would probably recognize significant parts of our modern educated usage as being more appropriate to uneducated people of his time. (I'm not referring to "ain't" here, but to things like "He went there." instead of the proper usage "He went thither." and many similar changes that we now take for granted.)

Of course, just because the language *does* change and there is no way of preventing it doesn't mean that I'm ever going to use "ain't" - but that is partly a function of living too far north to be exposed to it.

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