By Possessives, Dialects

I think I'd agree with GG... I don't think that "ain't" in place of "do not" or "does not" is what you are likely to hear in most American dialects. These are the most common usages, as far as I know:I ain't seen it. (have/has not, auxiliary)I...

From answers.com: Speakers of some vernacular American dialects, particularly in the South, may use the possessive reflexive form hisself instead of himself (as in He cut hisself shaving) and theirselves or theirself for themselves (as in They found theirselves alone). These forms reflect the...

b is correct. He isn't a good boy Here are the rules for contractions: Apostrophes with Verb Contractions Apostrophes generally show missing letters in contractions. In most formal writing such contractions should be avoided. The most common contractions involve verbs in five situations....

Hi, CliveI don't know that use of "we" necessarily means the king and the country were taken as the same entity. The OED, a mere dictionary for a British dialect of your language, quotes "We, Dermot, prince of Leynester (1425)" as the oldest use of "we" of that usage. The OED says the "we" was...

OED The gerund still retains one feature of the verbal noun, namely, that of admitting of a preceding possessive case or possessive pronoun, as in "after John's behaving so strangely", "upon my readily granting it". In the literary language this construction is regularly retained with a pronoun,...

Hello MrP History of English Gerunds (quoted from OED) The most notable development of the verbal nouns in form of -ing is its use as a gerund, i.e. a substantive with certain verbal functions, particularly those of being qualified by an adverb instead of an adjective, and of governing an...