My quick response (I'm removing myself from responsibility for being intelligent and fair): "If it ain't broke..." is an idiom and therefore should not be altered. I would rather consult Webster's DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH USAGE than Fowler. Unlike Fowler, who merely guesses, Webster's tells the real story behind"ain't" (it's a low economic class pronounciation of the same root word that upper class citizens pronounced "aren't"; out of those two different pronunciations grew two different spellings, which are now considered two different words). Aren't, in other words, does not dervive from "are not." --Bill Murdick