Posted by Toby Inkster on 09/04/05 11:13

Edwin van der Vaart wrote:

> I thought I can shorten the sentence "What does it do?" into "What
> does't do?".

Nope. You cannot just contract any word that takes your fancy. Almost all
English contractions take the form of:

1. a negation (something with "n't" added to the end); or

2. a combination of a pronoun (I/you/he/she/it/we/they/etc)
with an auxilary verb (have/shall/will/am/would/should/etc).

Almost any other contraction in written English is incorrect.

Notable exceptions:

'til until
'cause because

And, rather poetic, but rarely used:

'tis it is
'twas it was
'neath beneath
e'en even
e'er/ne'er ever/never

In spoken English, there are a few more.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact

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