Bart: Give it up Dad. Piggy ain't coming back. How can you translate “ain’t coming back”? The sentence is from the script from “the Simpsons”. [Piggy gets caught in a dam spillway, and when the pressure builds, it shoots into the sky.] It's just a little airborne, it's still good, it's still good! Bart: [Crestfallen.] It's gone. Homer: I know. Homer and Bart are standing in their backyard. Homer is scanning the sky with binoculars. Bart: Give it up Dad. Piggy ain't coming back. Let me express my idea. Piggy ain’t coming back = Piggy is not coming back 1) present continuous with a future meaning : “He is having dinner with Kate on Friday.” (He has already decided and arranged to have dinner) (Piggy cannot decide and arrange) 2) I have a firm intention or have made a definite decision to do something. “I’m not asking Tom to the party.” Can I translate it into “Bart definitely decided that in his opinion Piggy ain't coming back”? ( I don’t think so.) 3) the shortened form of “Piggy is not going to come back.” = (I predict that) Piggy is not coming (ain’t coming) back. I do not think any of these 3 usages makes sense to me.
Expert Answers
lmetcalf
| Certified Educator
| Certified Educator
calendarEducator since 2004
write1,941 answers
starTop subjects are Literature, Social Sciences, and History
Your understanding of the meaning of sentence is fine. You have to remember that you are working with a script that is trying to mimic casual American English, but in this case, the script is pretty straight foward. Bart is telling Homer that he is very sure that Piggy is not coming back. Part of the meaning of the line comes from the fact that the sentence before that is "Give it up Dad." That translates to "Give up the idea that Piggy may come back." By stating in two sentences the same idea, it comes across as rather emphatic that Bart is confident that Piggy isn't coming back.