Contractions

What is a contraction?

A contraction is a shortened form of a word (or group of words) that omits certain letters or sounds. In most contractions, an apostrophe represents the missing letters. The most common contractions are made up of verbs, auxiliaries, or modals attached to other words: He would=He’d. I have=I’ve. They are=They’re. You cannot=You can’t.

Contractions are common in speech—so common that we don’t always take the time to pronounce them precisely, which leads to a particular contraction mistake writers might make if they’re not paying attention. In speech, we often pronounce could’ve, should’ve, and would’ve in a way that sounds identical to “could of,” “should of,” and “would of.” But you should never write could of, should of, or would of. Remember, could’ve, should’ve, and would’ve are contractions that mean could have, should have, and would have.

Other contractions

Some writers use less common contractions when they want to represent a particular style of speech. They might write somethin’ to represent the way people often don’t pronounce the final g of “something” in speech. Occasionally, you might see e’er (instead of ever) in poetry. And, of course, in the American South, you will probably encounter y’all (you all). Decade names are often contracted as well: the ’60s (the 1960s).

There are a few contractions, such as gonna (going to) and wanna (want to) that are written without apostrophes.

When to use contractions

Contractions are perfectly standard, but they’re usually considered to be relatively casual. If you’re writing something very formal, you may want to avoid using them except in cases like o’clock, where the full phrase (of the clock) truly is rare.

Grammar Basics: What Is Subject-Verb Agreement?

In English, subject-verb agreement is important. What this means is that the characteristics of the subject should be reflected in the verb. For example, if a subject is a singular, the verb form must also be singular.

She see you.

She sees you.

Likewise, if a subject is plural, the verb must also be plural.

We sees you.

We see you.

Unlike in other languages that require that subject and verb agree in both number and gender, English verbs are not conjugated for gender and so require only that they match in number.

To learn more about grammar and to help us celebrate National Grammar Day this March, visit our new resource page.

What’s the Difference between Less and Fewer?

Why is it so easy to confuse less and fewer? Perhaps because they both represent the opposite of the comparative adjective more. Luckily, the conundrum of less vs. fewer has a solution that is simple to remember. It involves deducing whether fewer or less will be working with a countable or uncountable noun in your intended sentence.

In English, we use the same word, more, for a greater number and a greater amount/quantity. There is little doubt about when to use more.

Cookie Monster has demanded more cookies.

Could you give Cookie Monster more milk to wash those down with?

Cookies is a countable noun; it is possible to count cookies. Milk, on the other hand, is an uncountable noun; it is a liquid that we measure in terms of volume. Uncountable nouns are always singular.

Here’s a tip: A good way to test that a noun is truly uncountable is to try making a plural out of it.

Could you give Cookie Monster more milks to wash those down with?

That quick check confirms that milk is an uncountable noun.

The Difference between “Less” and “Fewer”

Fewer means “not as many.” We use fewer with countable nouns like cookies.

Cookie Monster was told to eat fewer cookies.

Less means “not as much.” We use less with uncountable nouns like milk.

Could you give Cookie Monster less milk next time?

Most often, you will not have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce whether a noun is countable or uncountable, thus the decision between less and fewer will be an effortless one.

If fewer people used disposable water bottles, there would be less plastic in landfills.

Molly has been drinking less water than she should on this dry day.

David makes fewer grammatical mistakes than the average person.

My new furniture leaves me with less space for yoga practice.

As the days passed, the rose had fewer petals left on it.

In these examples, determining the countability of the nouns involved was easy. People, grammatical mistakes, and petals are all countable nouns. As difficult as it would be to count all the people who use plastic water bottles, it would be possible to enumerate them because they are itemizable individuals.

Plastic, water, and space, on the other hand, are uncountable; we only describe them in quantities. To make them countable, we would be obliged to compartmentalize them in some way (e.g., pieces of plastic or glasses of water). Nouns that can be further defined and measured in this way make the distinction trickier. For example, here are two sentences with almost the same meaning, but one requires fewer while the other requires less.

Now that my commute is shorter, I use fewer gallons of gasoline each week.

Now that my commute is shorter, I use less gasoline each week.

In the first sentence, fewer is used with the countable compound noun gallons of gasoline. In the second, less is used with the uncountable noun gasoline.

“Less vs. Fewer” with Money

Although we can count money, it is usual for us to think of money as a bulk quantity rather than an aggregate of currency units. Therefore, we use less rather than fewer.

Rebecca has less than twenty dollars left in her checking account.

It would not be wrong to say, “Rebecca has fewer than twenty dollars left,” but it would seem awkward and unexpected to your reader.

“Less vs. Fewer” with Time

It is also customary to use less with regard to time, even though we can count time in seconds, minutes, hours, and so on.

Ethan has been at his job for less than five years.

I wish I could spend less time on household chores.

Yet, depending on how general or specific your reference to time is, it may require the use of fewer.

I wish I could spend fewer hours on household chores and more on watching television.

“Less vs. Fewer” with Weight

Weights are also nouns that are measured in a countable way, yet are customarily used with less rather than fewer.

Baby pandas weigh less than 200 grams at birth.

Even though the pandas’ weight is countable (and in fact we did count it, in grams), it would seem awkward to write, “Baby pandas weigh fewer than 200 grams at birth.”

“Less vs. Fewer” and Percentages

Determining whether percentages represent something countable or uncountable can be tricky. To decide whether to use fewer or less with a percentage, you will have to look at the bigger picture and ask yourself, “What is this a percentage of? Is it countable?”

Fewer than eight percent of the world’s people have blue eyes.

Although counting the world’s people would be an unenviable task, it is possible to count individual people. Therefore, eight percent of the world’s people is countable and we use the word fewer.

I see you have eaten less than ten percent of your mashed potatoes.

As determined as the speaker in this sentence might be, it would not be possible for him or her to enumerate the uneaten percentage of potatoes. Therefore, we use the word less.

Aid vs. Aide—What Is the Difference?

• Aid (as a noun) means “help” or “assistance.” As a verb it means “to help” or “to assist.”
• An aide is an assistant.

Even though the words aid and aide have similar meanings, are written similarly, and are pronounced the same, they cannot be used interchangeably.

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What Does Aid Mean?

Aid can be a verb, a noun, or an adjective. It is synonymous with the words “help” or “assist” when used as a verb, and again “help” and “assistance” when used as a noun:

He stayed home so he could aid his aging parents.

The first round of financial aid was granted to the developing country.

The first in a series of aid packages has been green-lit.

What Does Aide Mean?

Aide is always used as a noun. It means assistant. Some dictionaries note that aid, used as a noun, can have the same meaning, but for the most part publications tend to use aide for assisant and aid for assistance:

We tried to get to the CEO of the company, but we were only able to talk with John, her aide.

Examples

Cuts to legal aid have created a two-tier justice system in “crisis”, a new report warns.

The Daily Mail

While there is some trepidation around the recent weakness in the yuan, some are looking at the bright side of a weaker currency aiding Chinese exports.

Reuters

This is at odds with government commitments to eliminating wasteful aid spending, imposing accountability and cracking down on tax havens.

Financial Times

Lord Sugar’s former aide on ‘The Apprentice’, Nick Hewer, might have been on the show for ten years, but that doesn’t mean he enjoyed it.

The Huffington Post UK

Our Favorite Words in the English Language

Whether you are a logophile (word lover) or not, you probably can think of one or two words that you really enjoy using. These words don’t have to be rare or exotic. In fact, sometimes it’s far better if they aren’t. Some of my personal favorites are demure, frank, and stalwart. Why are they my favorites? Well, besides being fun to say, they are concrete and clear.

I’ve decided to run a poll on our Facebook page seeking out the top five favorite words in the English language. I asked:

There will be a lot of nominations, but only the top five will be featured in a blog post next week and made into a cool graphic. Naturally, for this poll, we will only accept words that have been added to mainstream dictionaries and are not slang.

Why not cast your vote? Visit the poll.

Essential History and Guide for Modern Acronym Use (Part 1 of 2)

Guest post from Scott Yates

As founder of a blogging service for business operators too busy to write their own posts, I pay a lot of attention to “good” writing.

We have a wide variety of clients, and our challenges involve the mastery of industry jargon, including acronyms and abbreviations.

So, if a client asks for a piece on search engine optimization or customer resource management — acronymically SEO and CRM — should the blogger just jump in and use the abbreviation, or should we genuflect at the altar of convention and have each abbreviation undergo the initiation of being spelled out at least once?

Well, what do the style guides say?

The Associated Press gurus discourage all acronyms — the AP Style Book discourages using abbreviations and acronyms and advises writers:

“In general, avoid alphabet soup. Do not use abbreviations or acronyms that the reader would not quickly recognize.”

The American Psychological Association, like the Associated Press, recommends against them:

To maximize clarity, APA prefers that authors use abbreviations sparingly. Although abbreviations are sometimes useful for long, technical terms in scientific writing, communication is usually garbled rather than clarified if, for example, an abbreviation is unfamiliar to the reader.

Of course, both the Associated Press and the American Psychological Association use their own acronyms freely, assuming everyone knows who they are. Ahem.

How did we get to this situation where style gurus advise against acronyms, but use them anyway?

In part it’s because of the relatively recent explosion of acronyms in modern usage. Most of the rules of spelling and grammar go back hundreds of years and for English they date back to jolly old England.

Acronyms are much more recent, and — like baseball, jazz, and national parks — are born in the USA.

The “alphabet soup” alluded to above was an innocuously thin concoction that began way back in 1840 with the classic abbreviation of “O.K.”  Martin van Buren, possibly our nation’s most boring presidential candidate, had the nickname, “Old Kinderhook,” and his supporters formed the “O.K. Club.”

The abbreviation quickly morphed to something like its present-day meaning, but it took a presidential campaign to raise “O.K.” to where lexicographers would even take notice.

That was essentially the only acronym in English until the 1900s, when the abbreviation “G.I.” came into vogue about 1915 as a U.S. Army bookkeeping term, originally abbreviated from galvanized iron (the material for trash cans, etc.). Later, G.I. was extended to include everything the government issued, and finally to the soldiers themselves.

Before it was O.K. to be a G.I., we didn’t have any acronyms and not even many abbreviations. In fact, the most common abbreviations in widespread use were the Latin etc., the standard titles and honorifics — Dr., Esq., etc. — and the practice of abbreviating first names like Geo., Robt. and Thos. for George, Robert and Thomas.

Another historical note: Check out the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The shortened first names are the only abbreviations in our two founding documents. Ironic, perhaps, given the U.S. Government’s role in the explosion of acronyms after WWI.

Along came the Great Depression and its soup lines, as well as an alphabet soup of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Terms like the CCC, CWA, WPA and others attached themselves to federal programs and labeled the agencies charged with administering them.

Fast forward past WWII and the growth of our military establishment, local, state, and multilayered and overlapping federal bureaucracies, and the explosion of abbreviations matched the growth of big government. The growth of medicine as an industry added to the mushrooming of acronyms in our language.

Which brings us back to where we started: The information age has brought even more challenges in keeping track of all those abbreviations. While it’s perfectly O.K. to use all the abbreviations and acronyms — and to stray from convention — just don’t mix up your soldiers with the medical term encompassing the human digestive system: They both share the abbreviation G.I.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series, to be published via the Grammarly Blog on May 30, 2014.

About the Author

Scott Yates was a writer for 20 years before he started a company where anyone can hire a blogger: BlogMutt. He had help in writing this post from one of the more than 3,000 active writers who have earned BlogMutt writing privileges. Along with BlogMutt writers, Scott recently published a guide to the essential content marketing acronyms.