January 26, 2001

dasn't

My father, who was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1906, often used the word dasn't instead of "shouldn't", as in "You dasn't play with matches." I've heard it used occasionally by others of my father's generation. Any idea where this word came from?

We do know! Dasn't is a contraction of dare not, found chiefly in dialects spoken in Northern parts of the United States. "Ah," you say, "but where in the world does that s come from?" Well, for one thing, dare had an old past tense form durst (still occurring in some dialects), and a second person singular present-tense form darst, pronounced (dairst). Either of these could have provided the "s" for the contraction. There is also the third person singular present dares, at present alive and well. The most likely sources of dasn't, then, are "dares not" (used with "he" or "she") and the older "darst not" (used with "thou"). The first syllable's pronunciation (dass-) can easily be understood as coming from either an "r-less" or "r-keeping" dialect, since the "r" sound before "s" is weak even when it is not altogether missing.

It seemed uniquely appropriate to check for information about this particular word in the Dictionary of American Regional English (known commonly and affectionately as "DARE"), where their attestations list several indicative, nonnegative, uncontracted forms of dare that are relevant for us. These include darst, dast, darse, dass, and das. The last two, used before an infinitive, are said to "have evidently lost the final -t by assimilation to the following to. Thus DARE's citations include both "Don't reckon we dast venture into them mountains till it's over" (Moody, 1956) and "Solomon didn' das' ter let on 'bout w'at he 'spicioned" (Chessnut, Conjure Woman, 1899). The DARE editors postulate that these positive forms probably represent a "back-formation from the negative da(r)sn't."

For the "dares not" contraction itself, DARE shows such variations as daresn't, darsn't, dasn't, dassn't, dasent, dassent, and even dazzent. Dasn't, in any of its forms, is used for all persons and numbers as well as for both past and present. It is found in New England and New York and as part of the Midland dialect, which is spoken chiefly in the southern parts of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, as well as in West Virginia, Kentucky, eastern Tennessee, and the southern Appalachians. There were no recent citations that turned up in newspapers, magazines, or journals, and I did not find it recorded in British or Canadian dictionaries. Clearly, dasn't is a U.S. term that is, as you observed, from an older generation.

Dasn't alone does not a nonstandard dialect make, but it has certainly proved useful as a way of hinting at rural or working-class speech in fiction, especially when accompanied by text that reinforces this image: "'Why haven't you fired?' repeated his commander. 'Liftinint, I dasn't', answered Sweeny, in the rapid, jerking, almost inarticulate jabber which was his usual speech" (J. W. De Forest, 1826-1906, Overland). Mark Twain, a known master of the artful use of dialect, made frequent use of the term. A typical example: "He dasn't tell! So it WAS a witch that done it. I just knowed it" (Tom Sawyer). But Twain also used it in thoroughly nondialectal contexts: "...and my legs shook so I dasn't try to take one of them out of the rounds for fear the other one would give way under me (Tom Sawyer Abroad). So although dictionaries label dasn't as either dialectal or regional, and although you yourself were not all that familiar with it, we dasn't infer that speech patterns like your father's are anything other than standard.

Enid