Heard on Springer: "Ain't _[nA at n]_ to it"

[Wilson Gray]

Twenty-ish, black male speaker, explaining to Jerry that he, too,
could be a pimp, 'cause ain't (nothin') to it.


I don't know of an eye-dialect representation for this "word,' a
highly-evolved form of the phrase, _nary a one_. So, I'm using _A_ for
_aesc_ and assuming the presence of the expected automatic
nasalization of the syllabic sounds.

IAC, it appears to be the case that, for some speakers, there's no
longer any underlying semantic connection with the sound's historical
roots and it's now just the word for "nothing."

Back in the day, it was still possible hear stuff like:

"I ain't got [nA@ n^d'n]."

"You ain't?"

"Naw. No? [nA@ w^n]."

You kinda had a clue that [nA at n] and "nothing" weren't the same word,
though it did take me a while to notice that [nA at n] and "none" weren't
the same word, with the former pronunciation being preferred by the
polloi, with their ususal penchant for disgracing the race..
--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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