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Etymologies
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Examples
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Fowler prescribed "a'n't" and not "amn't", for the reason of euphony you gave.
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He then bowed to him again, and begged pardon of all the ladies; but, in quitting the booth, contemptuously said to Mr. Dubster: 'As to you, you little dirty fellow, you a'n't worth my notice.'
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However, I've got a boy to go and get me a pair; if all the shops a'n't shut up. '
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But if ever I detect any of those monkies mocking us, and wearing our feathers, when you a'n't by, I sha'n't put up with it so mildly.
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A little girl then, with incessant low courtesies, appeared, and looking smilingly in her face, said, 'Pray, ma'am, a'n't you the Lady that was so good to us?'
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Only I've got no stairs yet to it; but there's a very good ladder, if the ladies a'n't afraid.
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I thought they'd been quite young; I wonder they a'n't married! '
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Then, turning to Lynmere, 'I wonder,' he cried, 'you a'n't ashamed of yourself!
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Sure, a'n't I the man that patronizes your Melodies? '
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I've lived to bless the Lord that kept me from you, and I a'n't going to take my blessings back.
Gammerstang commented on the word a'n't
(contraction) - The phonetically natural and philologically logical shortening of am not, especially in a'n't I? . . . Amn't is ugly; ain't is illiterate and, on other grounds, inferior to a'n't. Note that a'n't I offers only two different stresses of emphasis, whereas am I not affords three.
--Eric Partridge's Book of Usage and Abusage, 1954
"Amn't I" is still heard in parts of Scotland and Ireland, and is more correct than "aren't I," just as "I are late" is incorrect.
January 14, 2018