I Am Not

While some may not know, I don’t have a reputation for positivity.

This is not to say I don’t like positivity, it’s just that it isn’t as much fun. For one thing, positive sentences aren’t as long as short non-negative ones. Secondly, positive sentences don’t let you use the fun apostrophe nearly as much except for possessives.

In search of a less formal first person contracted negative, and greater use of apostrophes perhaps, none other than Shakespeare himself experimented with the versions amnt, amn’t, aint and ain’t. I don’t wish to enter that realm of experimentation, but it doesn’t bode well that since his time no one has succeeded.

There is of course resistance to negativity and I don’t believe it is fair that the word ‘doesn’t’ is treated so badly by songwriters in particular. ‘She don’t love me no more’, may fit the music measure, but is a disgrace to continually downgrade this beautiful negative auxiliary verb. This kind of ‘made to fit music English’ shouldn’t be tolerated. But then again, it ain’t so bad I suppose as it is a double negative at least.

Speaking of double negatives, as it isn’t well known, but I don’t think they receive the acclaim that they deserve. I mean, I don’t know nothing really, but they don’t sound half bad. Don’t you agree?

Well, I won’t take up no more space with this topic as it isn’t what I was thinking about anyway. Now? I can’t remember what it was or wasn’t that I was going to or not going to write about today. Ah. Grammar, was it not?

Derek Haines

Derek Haines (AKA The Vandal) is an author and a retired English teacher. He spends most of his time writing, blogging, and fixing technology that goes wrong. You can find his latest writing and publishing articles at Just Publishing Advice.