| 词组 | aren't I |
| 释义 | aren't I Aren't I has been a bugbear of American commentators since about the beginning of the 20th century. Frank H. Vizetelly in his many guises is one of the earliest. In Mend Your Speech (1920) he terms it erroneous, and in the Literary Digest (5 June 1926) a solecism; in the same magazine in February 1927 he says, "It is to be hoped that American editors will curb this undesirable alien. It has no authoritative standing anywhere, not even in England, and its usage is marked evidence of illiteracy." Strong words. What occasioned such vehemence? It is a widely noted phenomenon of modern English that there is no satisfactory filler for the blank in sentences like this: "I'm a little late, I?" Perhaps the most logical filler, ain't, has been cried down successfully by the pedagogues (see AIN'T), leaving only amn't, a'n't or an't, and aren't. Now, strange as it may seem, these three boil down to the same thing. Amn't, which Gowers in Fowler 1965 says is still in use in Scottish and Irish English, in Southern English speech loses the sound of the m and becomes a'n't, or an't, which are attested in print from the late 17th century. Aren't is a fairly recent contraction; we have little evidence of its existence before the 20th century. (We do have a Boswellian transcription "I ar'n't" from the speech of "a poor boy from the country" in 1775, but it probably is only Boswell's way of transcribing the sound other writers spelled an't or a'n't.) In Southern English speech it is pronounced the same, or nearly the same, as an't. Thus the same spoken word could be realized in writing by either an't or aren't. For reasons that we do not understand, the spelling aren't began to replace an't in aren 't I in British drama and fiction early in this century. This aren't I, then, is a curious hybrid: its meaning comes from am and its spelling from are. Aren't I on paper looks incongruous, and in those American dialects that pronounce the r, it sounds incongruous. Thus the early outrage of American commentators. Many later commentators have also disparaged the expression, though the bases for objection have grown more diverse. Several point out its ungrammatically; Krapp 1927 found it "sometimes employed in a kind of kittenish feminine English" (an opinion recorded by Evans 1957 and paraphrased by Copperud 1964); Shaw 1975 calls it pompous and affected; Red Smith, a Harper 1975 panelist, termed it a "Nice Nelly usage." But the acceptability of the phrase has been growing. There never seems to have been much fuss about it in England; Fowler 1926 doesn't mention it at all, nor do Treble & Vallins 1937; Partridge 1942 notes that the spelling is common but disapproves it (he favors a'n't); Gowers in Fowler 1965 terms it "colloquially respectable." American commentators have begun to soften their opposition; Bremner 1980 plumps for its acceptance; Reader's Digest 1983 finds it perfectly reasonable for those who dislike the other alternatives. Both the Heritage and Harper usage panels find it acceptable in speech, although they reject it in writing in favor, presumably, of uncontracted am I not? (What point the distinction between speech and writing has in this instance is unclear, since the form is unlikely to appear in writing except in recorded speech, actual or fictional, or in very informal writing that is close to speech.) Safire (N. Y. Times Mag., 23 May 1982) prefers ain't I, however. Given the continuing hostility to ain't I, it looks as though aren't I will win its way to respectability on both sides of the Atlantic. |
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