For years, teachers have warned against using the word ain’t, apparently with some success. Emily Hummell from Boston sent us a poem that may have contributed: “Don’t say ain’t / your mother will faint / your father will fall in a bucket of paint/ your sister will cry / your brother will sigh / the cat and dog will say goodbye.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Ain’t Poem”
Remember we were talking about the word ain’t and how we don’t see ain’t that much and maybe teachers were, you know.
Maybe it worked. Maybe all the injunctions against ain’t had an effect.
Well, I have another great injunction against ain’t. This was sent to us by Emily K. Hummel, who grew up in the Boston area.
She said she remembers a poem from her childhood that goes, don’t say ain’t, your mother will faint, your father will fall in a bucket of paint, your sister will cry, your brother will sigh, the cat and dog will say goodbye.
I mean, how tragic.
It sounds like Shel Silverstein a lot, doesn’t it?
Do you think that’s what it is?
It could be.
We’ll have to dig that out.
Well, Karen Irwin on our Facebook page mentioned another version that ends with not the cat and the dog will say goodbye, but or your dog will call the FBI.
I think that would be pretty cool, you know, if you could teach your dog to talk on the phone.
Anyway, good reasons not to say ain’t.
And we’d love to hear from you.
