In my somewhat-experienced opinion, I believe that many, if not all of the rules of the English language should be investigated and questioned. The questioning shouldnt be done for the purpose of disputing a rule, but for making sure that the rules still relevant and holds merit in the use of the English language. For instance, one shouldnt say "that rule was made by some old dudes who thought they knew everything like 200 years ago. Its probably obsolete." Instead, one should say "there is probably a reason why no one has gotten rid of this rule for a long, long time. Lets see if we can figure out why its necessary." Then if it is found that the rule doesnt serve a clear and necessary purpose, one could begin to question it. I have taken a stab at this myself in an amateur way. Without conducting formal research and basing all of my information on prior knowledge of the language, I have begun to question the necessity of the apostrophe in contractions.
From what i have gathered, the apostrophe is used to denote the fact that a word or words in a contraction have been shortened. It is sometimes used to interrupt diphthongs that would be created in contractions like "shouldnt." From looking at a list of English contractions I have concluded that in all contractions, the pronunciation is normal, i.e. "it sounds the way it looks." The apostrophe is ignored when pronouncing and is therefore, useless in the pronunciation of a contraction.
The idea behind using a contraction is often that the combining of two words makes for easier and quicker writing. While this is not the case for all contractions, some contractions only differ in length from the two words being combined by one or two letters. By combining these two words, then writing (or typing) the apostrophe, the same number of characters is being used. For example, "that is" in contracted to make "that's." Excluding the space between the words "that is" and "that's" contain the same number of characters: 6. How then, does one save time or effort by using this contraction? Answer: one doesnt.
When typing in Microsoft Word, or even the program in which Im currently typing, contractions without apostrophes come up as being spelled incorrectly. While they may technically be spelled incorrectly, how would leaving out the little tick mark trip up a reader? It cant. This point cant be proven very well in any other way than this: go back and look through this blog. In all contractions Ive written in this post, Ive left out the apostrophe. Was it noticeable? Did it change meaning? Throw off the main points of the post? Does anyone even care? No! The use of the apostrophe in contractions is unnecessary and even defeats the whole purpose of contracting two words. Despite my personal beliefs on this topic, I will continue writing with apostrophes on paper in order to avoid losing points from someone who believes that the absence of a simple apostrophe could throw off the Earth's gravitational pull and send us all flying into the sky. (Why, you ask, did i use an apostrophe in "Earth's" if Im writing this whole post against apostrophes? Its possessive.) So consider this post when writing and hopefully decide that you arent going to adhere to a rule that may not be necessary.
P.S. I heard of a famous author who didnt use apostrophes in contractions in his writings. I believe it may have been the author of Pygmalion, but I am not sure. Id like to find out.
P.P.S. I am also brainstorming about the need for capitalization in the beginning of the sentence. Proper nouns of course will be an exception, but its something i would like to look into. Also, is it completely imperative to capitalize "I" all of the time? i dont know...
I really like that you didnt use apostrophes in your contractions. It illustrated your point very well. Everything you said makes perfect sense, and the world would be fine without these apostrophes. And reading cant is completely natural, so everything would be fine if the powers that be decided that "can't" was wrong one day.
ReplyDeleteIn reference to the capitalization of "i", Dictionary.com says that came about because people didnt like to see such a small letter by itself. Also, Georgian and Arabic dont have upper and lower cases.
http://hotword.dictionary.com/whycapitali/#more-4122
I found this blog quite interesting, and I believe that you views on language, particularly when you state: "The questioning shouldnt be done for the purpose of disputing a rule, but for making sure that the rules still relevant and holds merit in the use of the English language" should be applied not only to language, but also to things like the laws and rights in the United States. There are a lot of laws in the US that I, and many others find questionable. What I like to see is forward movement toward re-evaluating these laws, figuring out which are still relevant to modern society, and making changes where they are needed.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting article!
This is the most interesting thing I've read recently. Omitting your own apostrophies is a clever way to make the point.
ReplyDeleteOne thing to consider is the fact that that contractions are not used in "Standard English." Nor are they used in textspeak. They're only used when the writer is being semiformal (which is the norm). It seems that, if nothing else, "apostrophied" contractions are used to show that the writer isn't ignorant -that they know that speech and writing are, to some extent, two distinct versions of the same language and that they are masters of both. There's even an apostrophe in "ain't."
To take your point to the extreme, to make writing purely mimic speech would lead to Jeff Foxworthyisms as in: "wichadidgya" ...as in: "You didn't bring your truck wichadidgya?"
Even more extreme: "Uintbringyetrukwichadidga?" You see how this may be a slippery slope. But I think you're onto something with the apostrophe and the sentence-starting capital letter (which is often rendered redundant by the preceding punctuation mark).
Fascinating.
Thank you all. And to Tom, i was thinking about the law questioning idea thing and i had the same opinion as you. this can be done for any establishment, especially government. i actually thought about writing about it in my post but i decided it was slightly off topic.
ReplyDeleteI've always thought this, but never expressed it in words, nor have I thought about it fully. It definitely makes sense, and makes me question the English language even more. I think I've always followed these rules blindly, because that's what we were always told to do. I don't plan on stopping the blind following, maybe only for the reason that it's so implanted in my mind by now. I will, however, begin to questions such facets of the English language, such as apostrophes, more than I have before. Thanks, Mitch.
ReplyDelete