A friend of mine (whose first language isn’t English) recently asked me how to contract “they are”, to which I replied “they’re”. The same person then asked how to contract “there are”, to which I replied “there’re” (I was speaking not writing at the time). I was then asked by said person to show them how to write these contractions, to which I pointed out that we hardly ever use these in written English and, if you ever do, the majority of people will probably tell you they’re (sorry — I mean: “they are”) wrong. I then wondered how many other commonly-spoken-but-rarely-ever-written contractions there’re (sorry, ahem, “there are”) in this crazy language we call English…
Here’s a little (and by no-means complete) list:
- couldn’t’ve — could not have
- hadn’t’ve — had not have
- he’d’ve — he would have
- how’ll — how will
- I’d’ve — I would have
- it’d’ve — it would have
- mightn’t — might not
- mightn’t’ve — might not have
- might’ve — might have
- not’ve — not have
- she’d’ve — she would have
- shouldn’t’ve — should not have
- there’d’ve — there would have
- there’re — there are
- they’d’ve — they would have
- we’d’ve — we would have
- what’re — what are
- what’ve — what have
- where’ve — where have
- who’ve — who have
- why’re — why are
- wouldn’t’ve — would not have
- y’all’d’ve — you all should have / you all could have / you all would have
- you’d’ve — you would have
For a somewhat more complete list of both commonly- and rarely-used English contractions, check out this page on Wikipedia!
One response
I’ve heard ‘ain’t’ so many times, often from people who normally swear not to use it at all :) I think there might be time to consider using those proudly, as spoken word is the pragmatics incarnate