Wouldn't it be funny if the Republican candidate for president got in solely because of grammar? Perhaps Americans are finally a little sick of this folksy approach? Maybe not, but "It ain't a day for quitting nothing" and "Ain't gonna happen" strike me as a tad too folksy for a president of a rather influential country.

Then again, I know we are all about descriptiveness here, so maybe not. I try not to be too prescriptive ("which" vs. "that" for example), but when it comes to "ain't" (discussed here before), I become more prescriptive. It just doesn't sound like something a leader of a major country should be saying.

Am I wrong?

On a (slightly) related note, recently I've started hearing in some American TV shows the pronunciation of "didn't" as "di'nt". The letter d is not sounded at all, and the word could easily be spelled "di-nt". I'm fairly sure this is relatively recent and the characters using it so far have all been teenagers so it may be a fad, but is it at all common across the pond?

It's common here. It's another dint in the pocked surface of American English.

For the record, I hate it, just as I hate the pronunciation of "wash" as "warsh."

It's just a different pronunciation. What's the big deal?

No big deal here. It's just that I couldn't remember hearing that pronunciation earlier than about a year ago.

It's just that I couldn't remember hearing that pronunciation earlier than about a year ago.

I'd say it's pretty common in some varieties of American English. I've heard it a lot in the past 3 or 4 decades.

I just wondered if it was some sort of catchphrase. As I said, I hadn't heard anything like that pronunciation, then I heard it recently a couple of times on different shows. It was used by teenagers, and I think in the sentence, "Oh no I di'nt!" or similar. I wondered if they were perhaps copying someone's catchphrase.

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It's just a different pronunciation. What's the big deal?

You are correct. There is absolutely no big deal. However, that's my reaction to those pronunciations, which is strange because I am not a good annunciator. Most recently I realized I have trouble with "decade." Shu says I pronounce it like "decayed."

So, no, it shouldn't be a big deal for the likes of me!

Most recently I realized I have trouble with "decade." Shu says I pronounce it like "decayed."

I've heard both pronunciations all my life. Sometimes from the same person. It's like arguing about how to pronounce almond or pecan.

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It's like arguing about how to pronounce almond or pecan.

I pronounce one "almond" and the other "pecan." I seldom get the two mixed up.

Does anyone here pronounce the "l" in "salmon?" I've heard that recently, though hadn't in the past.

"Warsh" is Indianaspeak. Just an accent, really, but since my Indiana dad was a poor Indiana farm boy married to an Ivy League Easterner-- & we lived in a college town-- "warshrag" sounded ignorant compared to "washcloth"-- & there you have it, Eliza Doolittle. It's where prescriptivist rubber meets the descriptivist road.

"Dint" >shudder< is what I get daily as a consequence of raising my kids in New Jersey (jeet? no, jew?)

As a former West Coast denizen now transplanted to Indiana, I've noticed that about half the locals speak Southern; the other half speak Yankee. "Warsh" and "wash" get equal billing in Muncie. And "pee-can" and "p'cahn" seem to share the same split. I'm of the "pee-can" persuasion - they taste better when you say it that way. I think Will Rogers would have agreed.

Well, I guess that figures; you are about equidistant between my Dad's hometown of Valporaiso up north (pea-can)and Louisville KY (p'kahn). I'm betting Will Rogers ate p'kahns.

I pronounce it "p'cahn," which I suppose I learned from my parents, who were from Kansas and Louisiana."Pee-can" is something I occasionally have to use when I'm on the road and there are no suitable facilities around.

I live in Washington state, and many people here say "warsh" and "Warshington."

I England, someone saying "warsh" would likely to be speaking in an uper class accent. I can imagine a member of the royal family saying it, but not many other people.

Wow. That is so different here, arnie. I see "warsh" as more of a lower class pronunciation.

I see "warsh" as more of a lower class pronunciation.

Really? I see it as a regionalism. Ironically the g-dropping phenomenon was also associated with gentry in England.

Ah, yes. I knew I'd get it for that statement. I was just being honest, but you are correct that I should consider it a regionalism.

I've got to get that lower class pronunciation out of my head!