not kind you get during labor (i wouldn't know about those), but the shortening of words. i wanna know who made up all the rules about contractions. i bet you didn't even know there were rules...but there is!! TONS! rules you don't even know exist, but you abide by them. stay with me. examples:
"are you going to the store?" an acceptable response: "yes i'm going to the store" or "yes i am" but why can't you just say "yes i'm"?
"is that yours?" "yeah, it's mine" or "yeah, it is" why not "yeah, it's"
"are you guys going to swim?" "we're going to swim" "we are" but it's apparently against the rules to say simply say "we're."
"that would be fun" "yeah it would" "yeah, it'd be fun"..."yeah, it'd"
i know what you're thinking. well, megan, obviously the rule is that you can't use a contraction to end a sentence. NOT TRUE!
it's perfectly okay to say:
"did you do that?" "no, i didn't"
"would you go there?" "i wouldn't"
so is the rule that you can only end a sentence w/ a negative contraction? i'm not sure what the rule is...but i think it would be fun to not go by it.
(the intent of this blog was not to lower anyone's IQ or cause you to think differently of me.)
12 comments:
you have too much time on your hands if you are thinking about things like this :)
but..it is a good point.
i have no answers for you my friend.
by the way..i miss you
That's funny Megan. Never really thought of it that way. Very good point. And I don't think of you differently. I already knew you were weird. :)
That is the most interesting thing I've read all day. Really, it's.
and...you can say "have not" as "haven't", "did not" as "didn't", "would not" as "wouldn't" etc. but why can't you say "am not" as "amn't"??
following todd's lead-- I want to know why that's.
i read your title, and got really excited!! then i read the frst sentence: "not kind you get during labor" and lost the excitment! :) but very good point!
ash, i've been thinking about you alot lately!! missing you too! is your semester almost over? i want to see you!
angela- good point. i guess it's good that people know i'm weird right from the beginning, so there's no surprises later.
todd and elias, i'm very proud! you guys picked it up wonderfully!! i hadn't even thought of that one, elias! amn't! i like it.
haha lizzie. sorry my blog wasn't about labor contractions. i'll tell ya, you medical people always have your head in...medical stuff... :)
p.s. i hate the fact that you can't just "edit" a comment if you notice a typo or something you want to change. i just have to delete it. and what's the point of it still showing up in the comments as a deleted comment?
i think it's cause blogger is helping us be humble by reminding us that we make mistakes.
i had a friend in college named marieke. she and i decided to talk without using contractions or conjunctions. it doesn't really work . . .
I don't know where to begin. Flippin' hilarious. Your mind works in amazing and mysterious ways. I am in awe of you, truly I'm.
that would be hard to talk w/o using contractions! it would be fun to try though. maybe i'll try it some day at work...
shannon, i tell ya, the more and more you get to know me, that sentence will change. you'll end up saying "your mind works in...well, is it working??"
i do appreciate the effort from everyone to break this unwritten rule.
"Contractions have little or nothing to do with syntax or morphology, and everything to do with phonetics and frequency of use. Joan Bybee brings up the effect of token frequency on phonological and morphological reduction (as well as many other aspects of language) in her wonderful book Phonology and Language Use. Her point is that most exceptions, oddities, contractions, etc. in language are due to an extremeley high frequency of use."
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