...the hard wiring of grammer came to me intact! ... the onliest word i can think of is ain't-- ...It is not that long that it has been in the dustbin, a scant 200 years or so. (our founding fathers might well have used the word!)

I have enjoyed many a quiet self-righteous conniption over "ain't"... and then all of a sudden today a quote from Robert Louis Stevenson popped into my head:

"A birdie with a yellow bill
Hopped onto my windowsill,
Cocked his shining eye and said,
Ain't you 'shamed, you sleepyhead!"

I am abashed.