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Thread: Question tag

  1. #1
    edmondjanet is offline Member
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    Default Question tag

    I am a honest man, amn't I? or
    I am a honest man, aren't I?
    Thank you
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  2. #2
    freezeframe is offline Key Member
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    Default Re: Question tag

    Quote Originally Posted by edmondjanet View Post
    I am a honest man, amn't I? or
    I am a honest man, aren't I?
    Thank you
    aren't I is the correct option

    I think amn't I is acceptable in some dialects but I don't know anything about that.
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  3. #3
    Tdol is offline Editor, UsingEnglish.com
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    Default Re: Question tag

    You can also use am I not?
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  4. #4
    edmondjanet is offline Member
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    Default Re: Question tag

    Quote Originally Posted by Tdol View Post
    You can also use am I not?
    I feel genuinely one doubt, Can I write "amn't I" intead of" am I not"
    "I amn't" is the short form of "I am not" or "I'm not"?
    Thank you.
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  5. #5
    TheParser is offline Key Member
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    Default Re: Question tag

    Quote Originally Posted by edmondjanet View Post
    I am a honest man, amn't I? or
    I am a honest man, aren't I?
    Thank you

    ***** NOT A TEACHER *****


    "Good" English:

    I am an honest man, aren't I?

    I am an honest man, am I not?

    "Bad: English (used by some native speakers):

    I am an honest man, ain't I?

    ("Educated" people use "ain't" only when they are trying to be

    humorous. Most -- NOT all -- people are embarrassed to use

    "ain't." I have no doubt that a person who regularly uses "ain't"

    would never be elected to high political office in this country.

    We once had a president named Wilson. He reportedly said (in private)

    such things as "She don't like him." But he always said "She

    doesn't like him" in public. As a non-teacher and a fellow

    student of English like you, I respectfully suggest that you

    not use "ain't" -- except when you are in a humorous mood.)

    P.S. The scholar George O. Curme (writing in the 1930's) says

    that the spelling amn't is sometimes used in Ireland in the first

    person singular:

    Amn't I after telling you she's a great help to her mother?
    (Lennox Robinson, The Whiteheaded Boy)

  6. #6
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    5jj
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    Default Re: Question tag

    Interestingly, 'aren't' is not particularly odd, in the spoken version. Other auxiliary verbs change the vowel in the contracted version - do/don't, will/won't, and two have the same change as am - shall/shan't, can/can't.
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