For the book lover on your gift list, Grant recommends the mix of magic and science in All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders. He also likes the work of Firoozeh Dumas: It Ain’t So Awful Falafel, about an Iranian teenage girl living...
The saying, “I ain’t lost nothin’ over there” is a dismissive way to say “Why in the world would I bother going to that place?” A similar version “you ain’t lost nothin’ down there,”...
Did you know reading poetry improves your prose? That includes hip-hop lyrics, too. Also, how linguist can guess where you come from based on how you speak. What do you call someone who picks the chocolate out of the trail mix...
If someone’s standing between you and the TV, you might say “Your daddy ain’t no glassmaker!” Grant and Martha have another version, where you might ask them “Have you been drinking muddy water?” This is part of a...
For years, teachers have warned against using the word ain’t, apparently with some success. Emily Hummell from Boston sent us a poem that may have contributed: “Don’t say ain’t / your mother will faint / your father will fall...
Has ain’t gone out of fashion? Teachers have succeeded in stigmatizing the word, and it’s also not such a common pet peeve any more. But perhaps the biggest reason you don’t hear it as much is because it’s no longer used in...