CHAPTER 5

Contractions

Contractions are as simple as they are useful. The apostrophe takes the place of a missing letter (or

letters) and the two words are combined. In almost all cases, the first of the two words is not changed.
The letters are dropped from the second word. Usually there is only one letter deleted, but there may be
as many as four.

(^) “Ain’t is never acceptable.”
The unusual contraction is won’t for will not. Many years ago, it was willn’t, but that is now archaic.
There are a few other contractions that are now archaic, including e’en for even.
Sometimes a contraction may have two meanings:
(^) There is one contraction that is frowned upon and never used by educated persons. This is ain’t, which
is the contraction for am not. The correct word, amn’t, long ago fell into disuse and is now considered
both awkward and archaic. Since there is no other contraction for am not, one would expect ain’t to be
quite acceptable. After all it has been around for over two hundred years. The main reason that ain’t is
not acceptable is that it has been, and still is, terribly overused and usually misused besides. It is often
used in place of haven’t, hasn’t, isn’t, aren’t, and a number of other negative contractions.
English is a marvelously flexible language so if ain’t is not acceptable and amn’t is archaic, we can
simply move the apostrophe to the preceding word and use I’m not instead. It would seem that this solves
the problem, except that most contractions can be used in the interrogative—haven’t I? isn’t it? don’t I?
etc. Since we cannot use amn’t I? we have to compromise with aren’t I? or am I not? Because these
seem awkward, however, whether we like it or not, the unacceptable ain’t will probably be with us for
many more years.