That ain't right

"I ain't done nothin' wrong by speaking to the gentleman," says Eliza Doolittle, the Cockney flower seller in the film My Fair Lady. "I've a right to sell flowers if I keep off the kerb."

Ain't is common in dialects and non-standard forms of British and North American English.

Ain't is a contraction that can stand for "am not", "is not", "are not", "has not" or "have not" in colloquial English.

So what would Eliza Doolittle's response be in standard English?
"I haven't done anything wrong..."

Eliza also uses what is called a double negative. Instead of the correct "I haven't done anything wrong", she uses the non-standard "I haven't done nothing wrong".

Double negatives and the word ain't crop up again and again in song lyrics, making them difficult to understand.

When Christina Aguilera sings "Ain't no other man but you", we know what she means. Had she sung "You are the only man in my life", the song wouldn't be half as catchy. But just because Cockney flower sellers, pop singers and rock stars use ain't, doesn't mean you should use it yourself! For a non-native speaker, it's one thing to understand colloquial English but another thing to try to use it.

Now try the exercise on the next page.

Dagmar Taylor