Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

This topic has 19 replies, 14 voices, and was last updated 12 years ago by Britney.

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April 16, 2013 at 12:17 pm
nerakr
Participant
Ds9 has recently started saying “ain’t.” Although we live in a small town in the Deep South where the word is second nature to many, my former teacher mother would not let me or my sisters use it, and I don’t use it now. I’ve told him it makes him sound as if he doesn’t have any sense, but that doesn’t seem to bother him. I don’t want to use vinegar/Epsom salt/pepper sauce since it’s not a bad attitude/bad word thing. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Karen
April 16, 2013 at 12:45 pm
Laura.bora
Participant
How about a simple “That word really bothers me. Could you please not say it?” That usually works for us. They’ll slip up, but it’s usually quickly followed by an “Oh oops! Sorry, I forgot!”
April 16, 2013 at 2:00 pm
Scoathy
Participant
any word I don’t care for, I taq it as a “bad word” in our house. With that, it means my DS also has authority to call me out if I say it 🙂
April 16, 2013 at 6:29 pm
LDIMom
Participant
From somone who doesn’t use it but whose husband does, I find your comment to him that it makes him sound like he doesn’t have any sense to be very unkind. Would you really say that to anyone else who says it? I mean, someone who uses it so effortlessly they probably don’t realize they say it? Do you really want your son to think anyone who uses the word “ain’t” has no sense?
If that is your desired outcome, then I guess continue that method. As for him saying it, I don’t really have any great advice. It doesn’t bother me though anymore than hearing our relatives in western PA, who make fun of DH for saying “ain’t” and for all of us saying “y’all” to say “you-uns”. Yes, I think that sounds weird but it doesn’t bother me. It is no more or no less incorrect grammatically than aint or y’all.
April 16, 2013 at 6:53 pm
Shannon
Participant
My guess is if he doesn’t hear his family say it, he will give it up if it doesn’t become a battle. I grew up in the south where everyone says ain’t but my family didn’t say it so I didn’t. Maybe I played with it at one time or another – I don’t remember – but it wasn’t how ‘we’ talked so it didn’t stick. Somehow I spent my entire childhood, well entire life, in the south and never even picked up the southern accent!
April 16, 2013 at 7:07 pm
pangit
Participant
I agree with Shannon. He will probably eventually drop it. Just tell him that you would prefer him not to say it and then gently remind him when he does. When we were kids, my Mom didn’t like my brother and I saying “ain’t”. We did go through a phase where we used the word. She told us it wasn’t a word and we weren’t to use it. I looked it up in the dictionary (and, yes, it is there) and showed it to her. My brother came up with a little thing he would say: “Ain’t ain’t a word, so don’t say ain’t.” Mom just kept reminding us not to use the word and eventually we quit.
April 16, 2013 at 7:38 pm
nerakr
Participant
@LDIMom, yes, my response to him was unkind. I said it w/o thinking.
@Shannon and Pangit, I hope he does eventually drop it. He’s probably just trying to get a reaction from me. It’s probably just like with other incorrect grammar–gently correct him when he says it.
April 16, 2013 at 8:00 pm
Rebekahy
Participant
I feel like in the past few months we just did another thread on this… I did a search for “ain’t”, but I got an error message back that said I was using an “invalid argument” – so perhaps you could just tell him that you won’t answer him until he uses a “valid argument”.
April 16, 2013 at 8:35 pm
Paula Spicer
Participant
Has anyone heard of how the Native American language is being lost? The past few years I have read and saw new reports on how tragic this is. Some of these Native Americans have been trying to learn their native language in order to keep it alive. I know you are wondering what does this have to do with the OP question:)….What if the southern Appalachian language were to be lost? Think of it this way, you son is preserving my native language 🙂 Please don’t take that as a smart remark. My 3 kids were saying this word at 1 1/2 years old. We use it all the time. For me, just another common word. But if you don’t like him saying it, I wouldn’t put him down to make him feel like “he does not have any sense”. That could be hurtful, just tell him you don’t like it. Mine are not allowed to say gosh, by mother thinks this is crazy, but my kids my rules 🙂
April 17, 2013 at 1:42 am
LindseyD
Participant
As someone who is also from the South (and proud of it!), I don’t personally use the word nor does my family, but it doesn’t bother me when others say it. Along the lines of what daybydaymama said, I think certain words that reflect the traditions or culture of a certain area are actually quite charming. Although our family doesn’t say ain’t, we do say y’all, fixin’ to, get around to it, as well as cutting the g sound off of ing words (goin’, makin’, havin, etc.). To us, it’s so second nature we don’t really think about it. I’m a pretty proper person, but in the South, I don’t think it means you’re an uneducated back woods hillbilly just because we don’t use “correct” terminology all the time. It’s part of our culture, just like the Brits have their own slang/cultural terms and New Englanders have theirs. If if bothers you, just tell him you’d appreciate it if he would use “I’m not” instead and then remind him every time he does use it. Growing up, we had a quarter jar. My dad was convicted of his foul mouth, so we got a jar for the center of our table which my dad would have to place a quarter in every time he cussed. It got pretty full, but he did clean up his language. 😉 Maybe this could work as a way to break this habit, if you’re really set on breaking it.
Take care now (said in my fairly thick Texas accent),
Lindsey
April 17, 2013 at 1:53 am
RobinP
Participant
I say it. A lot. My people are Appalachian mountain folk. That’s the way they talk. That’s the way I talk when I’m around them. (Whew, if you could hear my accent!). I don’t have to and if I were around others or, say, speaking at one of my seminars, etc. I wouldn’t, but it doesn’t bother me in the least. I guess every group has some sort of slang that is common to them. I don’t see it as uneducated but simply as part of their heritage. We still have our t-shirts from years ago with this saying. See if you can decipher this…
M R Ducks
M R not
O S A R C M Wangs?
L I B. M R ducks
😉
I think we were posting at the same time, Lindsey. 🙂
April 17, 2013 at 1:55 am
LindseyD
Participant
Dh just found this, and it’s a pretty accurate list of things we Southerners say. We were reading through it, and saying, “Wow, we really do say this!”
http://www.gagirl.com/southern/how_to_speak_southern.html
It’ll give the non-Southerners a good laugh too.
April 17, 2013 at 1:58 am
LindseyD
Participant
Robin, I knew exactly what your tshirt said!
😉
April 17, 2013 at 2:02 am
LindseyD
Participant
I can tell you that if you walked around using correct language all the time where I’m from, people would be asking you where you were from. If you were to say “you all” instead of “y’all”, people would naturally assume you “ain’t from ’round here”. Like Robin, if I am speaking publicly or at an important meeting or event, I try to watch my accent and syntax. But in everyday life, this is how we are and no one around us thinks there’s anything wrong with it.
April 17, 2013 at 3:24 am
2flowerboys
Participant
ROFL@ Robin!!
From a Southerner 🙂
Love it Lindsey! from a Ga peach 🙂