•December 29, 2021•
By Jim Baumann
NP Guest Writer

Today’s column will take you less time to dispatch than the Christmas ham and probably cause twice the dyspepsia. It has me.
If we’re anything alike, you feel like you’re having contractions after a hefty meal to celebrate the birth of Jesus. For those of you who don’t celebrate him, please hang in there with my line of thinking.
I’ve been feeling contractions ever since I wrote about why “amn’t” ain’t a contraction for “am not.”
Here is a heapin’ helpin’ of the bellyful I got from this column.

H’aint
“There are a couple of obvious fixes to the contraction dilemmas you raised: A confusing ‘there’s’ can be easily clarified with ‘they be,’ as in, ‘They be 30 taquitos in the freezer,’” chimed in reader Jamie Smith. “And I’m sure you know that the solution to ‘amn’t’ is ‘h’aint’ (as distinguished from the ghostly ‘haint,’ both of southern Appalachian origin). Gotter start gittin’ y’all ’customed to the di’lect!”     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.