Ain't it fascinating?

Doing research for a novel is a blast. You run across some intriguing information when you’re poking around. Like the history of the word “ain’t,” a word that will be put to use in my forthcoming novel set in the 1850s. “Ain’t” is frowned upon by sticklers for proper English, but how is it any different from “aren’t” and “isn’t?” Or “hasn’t” and hadn’t?” They’re all contractions.

In fact, before “ain’t” appeared in print, the contraction “amn’t” was used for “am not” as early as 1618, maybe e...