The word "won't" does not look logically formed

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phinds said:
It ain't. Get over it.
Where did ain't come from.
Used to mean "are not", but now you get the ruler for using it.
Well , maybe not now, but at one time, when teachers had the powre pohwa.

EDIT: changed power to a Boston accent.
 
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256bits said:
Where did ain't come from.
Used to mean "are not", but now you get the ruler for using it.
Well , maybe not now, but at one time, when teachers had the powre.
The Wikipedia Ain't article covers this well enough -- It contains a reference to 'rhoticity' -- 'whether' or 'whethə' the 'r' is pronounced or not, when it immediately follows, but does not immediately precede, another vowel -- fascinating fodder for amateur philologists.
 
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256bits said:
Used to mean "are not", but now you get the ruler for using it.
Originally "ain't" was a contraction of "am not" per the Wiki article that @sysprog referred to. More recently it has become a contraction for am not, is not, and are not.

As a side note, I was watching an Irish series called "Blood" and one character said "I amn't," something I'd never heard before.
 
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Syntactic quirks from the language that brought you sentences like
'James, while John had had "had", had had "had had"; "had had" had had a better effect on the teacher'
 
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DaveC426913 said:
Heh. I like that. I'm going to start writing all my correspondence using British/Canadian spellings for lable, decible, reble and lible.
Once, while working in the U.S., I comment to a colleague that for some words, Canadians commonly use British spelling, while for other words, Canadians commonly use American spelling. Former, "colour"; latter, "tire". My colleague then asked "Do Canadians spell 'civilization' with an ess or a zee?" I replied "Canadians spell 'civilization' with a zed."
 
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Vanadium 50 said:
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
There's a story told about a sign painter who was hired to paint a sign for the front of a bakery. The sign was to read "Pies and Cakes."
After working on the layout awhile, the painter asked the baker, "How much space should I leave between Pies and and and and and Cakes?"
 
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Very interesting. I had wondered about this too. Just figured it was something we borrowed but really had no idea other than that.