I can't think of a more British contraction than mightn't. It simply does not exist in American English. But you missed talking about the fancier multi-contractions. "Wouldn't've" or "shouldn't've." Those you'll never see written, but you hear them all the time.

Scottish speakers tend to use the ‘I’ll not’ and ‘they’ve not’ forms in preference to ‘I won’t’ or ‘they haven’t’. Some Scots dialects also contain the absolutely glorious ‘amn’t I?’ which, when you think about it, makes a huge amount more sense than ‘aren’t I?’ for the first person (we don’t say ‘I are’).

Czech people often replace contractions with full forms when reading English sentences aloud. They usually shoot themselves in the foot. Common examples are "she is got a cat" (she's got) or "this is Peter is car" (where they analyse the possessive "Peter's" as the verb to be).

My dad once said "I like your emails son. You write like you speak." That made me smile! I often use double contractions like "wouldn't've" because if you're trying to write like you speak they're very handy.

I think, this will turn into my new "binge-watch" channel. Each episode is amazingly insightful!

Fun times for Southern American English speakers, we also have double and triple contractions like "y'all'ld've" (you all would have. I've never seen it written outside of specifically talking about the constructions, but they are used verbally often.

There're also contractions without the ' , like "gonna", "wanna" and so on, which are strictly forbidden in formal writen English

Great video. I like the example of “It’s not” versus “Isn’t it?”. In broad Yorkshire dialect, multiple contractions are used, which includes losing the “s”. My grandma and dad would say “‘ti’n’t” or “I’n’t it?” The first is a contraction of “It isn’t”, losing both the initial “i” and the “s”. My grandma used to use a phrase that sounds like “Tin tin tin”, but is actually a contraction of “It isn’t in the tin”.

The Boris Johnson scene in the last second of the video is awesome. The rest of the video, too, of course.

Some of my favorite contractions are an interrogative word + did or would Who'd What'd Where'd Why'd How'd They're technically grammatically correct if they use a did (not a would) and are very common in spoken English but rare when written, so it's a fun novelty when I do read them.

As a French and English speaker, I find it fascinating that French REQUIRES all possible contractions in formal writing, but in English, professors and pedants tend to insist on avoiding contractions in academic writing, despite how stilted it actually sounds.

If I ever could find "I can not believe it is not Butter" I'd buy out the store

What really stood out to me with Robby the Robot (the first robot featured in the video, from the film Forbidden Planet) was that he said "a hundred and eighty seven" instead of "one hundred eighty seven". That gave him away, to me, as not being a real robot. I would bet that this occurred because the script had 187 written with numerals rather than words, and the voice actor just read it as he would naturally say it.

Related to contractions, I find it interesting that we treat cannot as a single word, unlike will not, do not, may not etc

I just love your channel. Your passion for phonology and phonetics really shines through.

I love the way you kept a straight face when referring to Johnson's speech as "serious"!

I'm really enjoying your videos Dr. Lindsey. I realize this is more of a southern U.S. contraction, but I was waiting to see if you'd mention our beloved "y'all". Great video!

I've also noticed that a lot of non-native english folks want to end written sentances with contractions where we normally wouldn't. I've seen a lot of sentances like 'The thing is what it's', or more commonly a situation where they are asked a question like 'Are you a doctor?' And they'll respond with 'I'm'. I've only encountered this in wrting though and it's very strange.

I remember English at primary school. We were not allowed to use contractions when writing. At all. At one point, the teachers were threatening to, and sometimes did, dock one house point per apostrophe in a word. I understand it was to get us all to talk proper innit, but it did make some stuff feel quite clunky. The other thing was the "One And per sentence" rule. To stop "I did that and then I did that and then he said this and she did that and it was great". But it also meant that the sign outside the chippie advertising "Fish and chips and bread and butter" was not right. Even though "Fish, chips, bread, and butter" sounds more like a shopping list than something you would want to get for lunch. I suppose at that age, you have to learn the rules to know when to break them

Someone on twitter wrote “You’ve to do this” and I thought *You’ve to?* I didn’t know why, but it didn’t sound right. I realized that “You’ve only to..” is ok and I suppose that’s because the stress is on ‘only’. Very excited to have discoverd your channel, especially your analysis of King Charles’ speech. Thank you!

I used to coach young Vietnamese English learners and felt that I would have to constantly correct their overuse of contractions in their writing. The point being that if they were writing a college essay, a corporate report or a job application, they needed to lean more toward the formal as opposed to the conversational. These days, God forbid, they are probably tempted to use emoji’s in their formal writings.

I came here, a bit late to the party, mind, from watching you with Simon Roper. Absolutely fascinating! Studying languages is a hobby of mine, so a lot of these examples were familiar to me, from just considering how odd English must seem sometimes to foreign learners, but I'd never looked at them in such a multi-dimensional way. Loved it! I would mention also, referring to the point made around 3:09 , that where I'm from (Oldham, Greater Manchester), "didn't", "isn't" and "haven't", are very often said as "din't", "in't" and "'ant". Thank you for your content, instantly subscribed!

Referring to the part when you talked about non-native speakers (like myself): I believe nowadays the learning process of specifically the English language is a different process then it was some time ago. While we do learn a lot about it in written form there have also been listening comprehension excercises when I was in school (up until 2016). Another point is, of course, the internet. Since English is the lingua franca of the internet, younger people tend to learn the language by consuming all sorts of media and content in English. Especially people who play multi-player video games learn it by typing to other players or speak to give out information about what ever game they are playing. Learning has (luckily in my opinion) become much more of a "learning by doing" process and shifted away from a more theoretical approach. That way I feel like it is much easier to learn a language. While I did have English lessons since I was about eight years of age, I feel like I learned most about it after my school time ended; through UKposts, gaming, movies and other media. I might still make plenty of mistakes and still can't get rid of my accent, I do think that media is more responsible for giving me the ability to communicate with others than what I learned in school. Disclaimer: I'm not saying that learning grammar in school and/or how the language works theoretically isn't important. This is only how my personal learning worked.

Super interesting! I’m an English language assistant abroad who has no formal training in teaching English but I find grammar super interesting. I was explaining to a class that both “I’ve not” and “I haven’t” are acceptable, but have a different vibe! The best I could come up with was that I’d be more likely to say “I haven’t” whereas my grandma would be more likely to say “I’ve not” 😅

even in academic journals I still find it odd when running into a non-contracted 'not' phrase. It's like I'm humming along at 60 mph and all of a sudden I'm slowing down to 30 mph. It's not because it's a particularly difficult topic it's that it seems so odd and out of place. Then I start wondering about the nature and future of academic writing and whether this was done by choice or by mandate and why.

The bit about where contractions which can go either way is interesting. I have a friend from Ireland who would use "I'm not" and "I amn't" interchangeably (I'd never heard the latter before speaking to him). There's no overwhelming reason why it shouldn't be contracted at both ends, I suppose. "I'mn't" "I'dn't" "We'lln't" I suppose, except for convention. (Won't is an interesting one actually, isn't it? I feel like in older English I've heard "wiln't" used to be, I wonder why that changed to won't when it still means 'will not')

I'd love to hear some discussion on what is going on with "there's" in modern English. In my experience as a 45 year old U.S. north-midwest college educated native speaker, "kids these days" are all using "there's" with PLURAL subjects, which rings in my ears as incorrect. "There's lots of..." and "There's many ways..." seems to be positively universal in speakers younger than I am. I want to scream "There ARE!" It seems analogous to German's "es gibt" in that "there's" now functions independently from the number. I'm endlessly fascinated to be old enough that I'm starting to hear changes in the language. My grandparents were just older enough that I could detect some things they said as sounding "old-fashioned" to my young ears, and now I'm hearing new changes in the young. English seems to be giving up entirely on "correct" subject/object pronouns. Above, just about everyone would say "in speakers younger than me." Old fashioned "younger than I" sounds silly and academic, now, so I try to compromise by including the (understood) verb. "Just between him and I..." and "Her and I went..." are commonly heard by the likes of our highest elected officials. English *actively* avoids the "correct" pronouns, as sounding wrong or stilted. One truly inexplicable but very real change, which has indeed been the subject of academic papers, is the switch from doing something "by accident" to "on accident", with a fairly sharp cut-off age not too much younger than I am, so, people born some time after 1980. What could possibly account for a change in one of these arbitrary but heretofore FIXED phrase patterns!? Hasn't it been "by accident" and "on purpose" and "by mail" and "for granted" etc. for centuries? Or has English played shenanigans with those before? A pronunciation change I hear more and more now is in words like "button", "important", and "Britain": Where I pronounce all those with a very American "stop t" with no vowel at all between the t and n, younger speakers are pronouncing those as VOICED "d"s, with the vowel pronounced, sounding to me like buddin, impordant, and Briddin. Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, definitely says "impordant" -- so maybe this is something from his Alabaman Southern-U.S. accent leaking into the more general U.S. accent? Huge thanks for your incredibly interesting and extremely well done videos!

The chess column in my then-hometown paper (the San Francisco Chronicle) used to run a regular feature titled “It Is Your Move.” Grated on me every time I saw it.

I know this video is over 2 years old, but if you happen to read this, could you do a video on contractions that move "through" other words? I think they're always negations, like "is it not" vs "isn't it", or "am I not" vs "aren't I" (I really like the last one especially because the verb changes form completely, why isn't "amn't" allowed? Two nasal sounds back to back?)

I went to a very proper high school in Toronto in the 1960s and we were forbidden to use any contractions in our writing. If you used a contraction in answering an exam question it was considered a major grammatical error and if you had two of them on the same exam you failed the exam. I did not realize how much this was drilled into me until about my fifteenth year of teaching when one of my students said to me, "You know sir that you never use a contraction." After that, I thought I'd use them as it's a more natural form of speech, but I still have a problem ending a sentence with a preposition.

Fantastic channel. Thanx for all your effort!

I'm loving these videos. They're great!

In Argentina (or at least when I was in secondary school) our teachers always taught us the full forms of AUX verbs but always the contraction of NEG verbs. I didn't know "don't" and "doesn't" were contractions of "do not" and "does not" respectively until I watched a video explaining it. I thought contractions were cool when I learned them. I asked my teacher if I could use contractions of AUX verbs not only NEG verbs and they said "yes, Why not?" I was very happy 😄

I lived in Iran for three years. I found myself avoiding contractions to slow down my speech and hopefully make myself easier to understand to my listeners. I find myself still doing this while living in the United States, maybe as a subtle insult to someone I think deserves it.

Thank you for this very insightful video. I was reminded of my English lessons in school, about thirty years ago, where we were taught that contractions should only be used in spoken English, never in writing. As you have shown there are plenty examples to disregard this 'rule', so I might think of it as another form of teaching non native speakers vocabulary and sentence structure. 🙂

While listening to your vid on Weak Forms and this one on Contractions, I was reminded of some of my challenges speaking French while living in France. The two phrases that were the most extreme were "Je ne sais pas" (I don't know) and "Je n'ais pas" (I don't have). I learned my French pronunciations in the US, years before moving to France to study, so I pronounced each word fully (using the Strong Forms of each word). Native French speakers will pronounce "Je ne sais pas" as "Shai pa", and "Je n'ais pas" as "Djai pa" with the "pas" (pa) is pronounced weakly. Thanks for your videos, and thanks for helping me better understand my native language.

Your examples are absolutely to the point and hilarious! Good job, Geoff! BTW, the robot examples might signal that a typical syllable-timed language might sound robotic to the native English ear. How sad!

'Tis and 'tisn't persisted at least into the 19th century. They occur in a lot of literature of this period.

I've been speaking English all my life, and never knew the first thing about it! I'm learning so much from your videos. Thank you.

Thank you for bringing up Data! I was waiting for him!

Thanks! Your videos are great! There are also "wanna" and "gonna", which are a bit informal, but very common all over the English speaking world. And kinda slangy contractions like "Imma", "innit" or "dunno", which are, in fact, contractions of contractions. I'm a non-native, but I've got used to contractions listening to songs and watching films in English. By the way, modern robots can use contractions. I've got a Google speaker and she (my Google speaker has a female voice) speaks with contractions.

It IS very interesting and useful! Thank YOU very much indeed.

For such a dry subject, even with your rather dry delivery, this was a hilarious video! Loved it!

A little while ago on another channel (another linguistics channel, it so happens), somebody in a comment used the word "it'd've". It stood out enough for me to remark on it. Then the next thing you know, YT brings me to this video from over 2 years ago! Discovered this channel over the last week or two. Love it! Also, I love all the sci-fi references in this one, especially the Star Trek!

I love this channel and I do agree that spoken English and formal written English are distinct. I write academically and professionally and the style of writing is entirely different to how I would voice the same subject.

I am a non-native speaker and learnt English mostly from books. What I learnt was thi (another 'the') has to be used when 'the' precede a word that starts with a vowel or a vowel sound. In the video, as you talk to the American he kept on using 'thi' to many words that do not start with a vowel or a vowel sound. Words like 'hotel' 'herb' etc, what I learnt can also be understood as semi-vowels, are said to be some exceptions. I really wish you could clear this little doubt of mine. Thank you

hahahaha your videos are always so informative and funny! and your passion really shines through that lovely smile. just love watching your videos

I once knew someone from eastern Europe who spoke heavily accented English passably well, but never used contractions. In fact, when I pointed this out and that to sound more natural she should try using them a little, she actually argued that contractions are "low" English. I just laughed at her. This is what she was taught.

Brilliant video. Who knew contractions were so dramatic!! I cannot believe this has not had more views. I'll be sharing it!

I’ve always wondered why some contractions seem to even jump over other words: Don’t you have a dog - if avoiding contractions I would think the more common is: do you not have a dog.

When I was younger, I taught myself to always prefer "NEG" whenever I must choose between it and "AUX" when forming a sentence. I did this because people used to interrupt conversations with things like, "Hahaha, you said SNOT!" if somebody said, "it's not", for example, which really annoyed me and derailed my train of thought. I've carried the habit to this day. I still say, "I'm not", because people would surely misunderstand me, or at least worry about me, if I said, "I am't".

Amazing video and such a nice touch with That's all in the end!

👍🏻 Interesting and entertaining, all in one, thanks! Have you noticed the differences in native speaker dialects, especially the strange case of "can't" due to the American accent? Often when exploring the logic of something, they'll sum up an argument with something like "So it can't be done". Or "It can't be that way", etc. And it's very difficult to tell whether they're trying to say "can" or the very opposite "can't" .. which they often notice themselves, but instead of cleverly clarifying with "cannot" .. they go and compound the confusion by repeating their "can't" louder 😆 Another curiosity is "ain't", which is often far more than just "aren't" with an American twang. It seems also to be a wildcard for "am not", "isn't", and even "haven't" .. now ain't that strange! 😉

Interestingly in Scots dialect 'I'll not' is actually very common, but the 'not' becomes 'no' (as usual) and the 'I' sounds like 'ah'. Ahl no be there (I'll not be there). Didn't you see him? Did yae no see him? (Did you not see him?)

Excellent thanks you are right

The ending is magnificent!

In Ireland “I am not” is often contracted in speech to “I amn’t” rather than “I’m not”. It takes me by surprise sometimes when autocorrect doesn’t like it. Which of course it wouldn’t. It shouldn’t be a word.

The difference between "Don't do that" and "DO NOT DO THAT" is huge, such as DO NOT ENTER as opposed to "Don't enter".

I am soooo glad I found this channel. 🤔 I'm so glad I found... 🤔 (I also react badly to inappropriate contractions in written language. I'm just over-sensitive... 😅)

I am working on writing my doctoral dissertation now (nearly done in fact!), and it's taken some time to get used to avoiding contractions. In my first couple of chapters, my advisor would proofread them and there would be more than one contraction marked for me to change. I've now taken to always using the find function after completing each chapter to search for apostrophes to make sure I haven't inserted any stray contractions. It really is such an unnatural way to convey information, and it takes getting used to.

I enjoyed this tremendously. I had no idea Star Trek had gone down the route of discussing contractions! I was hoping that you were going to tackle the one that annoys so many of us, That is, the use of "would of" instead of "would've". Also, I found myself at a loss when trying to teach the apostrophe in "shan't" for "shall not". Was is ever "sha'n't"? (I just said that two apostrophes in one word was too many).

I love the humorous illustrations. On the subject of non-native speakers, over-use of non-existent contractions is an opposite error that people can be prone to. For instance my Indian relatives might ask when searching for something, 'where's it?' Where I would always say 'where is it?' in full. Although 'where's my coat?' is used by both of us.

My curiosity was slightly piqued by the title. Even still, this was far more interesting than I would have guessed.

I tend to write a bit more formal than I speek sometimes, though not a ton. And I do choose to not use contractions sometimes for emphasis. I think more about using them or not in writing, though. When speaking, I tend to let the speach more naturally flow.

Hi Mr.Lindsey, I really like your blog posts on your website and content on youtube. I was wondering if you could recommend a person or people, who share quality info on phonetics just as you do, for american english?

I know of one character (Noah from the webcomic El Goonish Shive) who avoids contractions purely to help him regulate his emotions and keep him from reacting to things too readily -- because he's working on some anger/impulsivity issues. Also: Do you cover "ain't" in any of your videos? I've long understood that it's a normal word (just not acceptable in certain registers like college papers), but it was a bit of an eye-opener when someone explained that it's actually an *intensifier* -- "I'm not doing it" is normal but "I ain't doing it" is stronger.

I've noticed that it is usually young native speakers who confuse contractions and their homophones, like you're and your, while for me, as a non-native speaker, it was always clear what the difference is. I think that this might be because native speakers first learn by overhearing, rather than logical study, so they just don't think what contractions are actually derived from when writing. I've also noticed that I never actually pronounce the contraction in they're (and sometimes you're). Or at least, I pronounce them like "theya" and "you ah", even though I'd spell them with contractions when writing.

The ending was marvellous!

one big difference I notice in British and American contractions is that we never contract have if it's NOT an auxiliary verb or part of the expression "has/have got" for ownership. For example in this clip of the first movie of Harry Potter, ukposts.info/have/v-deo/pp51bHyCj7B6qKc.html at 7:05 Harry says, "I haven't any money." We would not say this in AmE.

I'm sure I'm not the only person here who occasionally uses 'tis but that's more for fun and definitely on purpose

delightful

When you start learning English you are really exasperated by its fluidity and lack of logic - then you feel it’s charms and how flexible and rich it can become.

My favourite contractions are: "innit", "ain't"

that ending 😂😂

If we want to be technical, a robot is also a non-native speaker, since its native language is whatever it is programmed in.

Mr Data's manner of speech is my reference for spoken English.

"y'all" is my favorite contraction. it may be the National contraction of Texas, my home Country.

I have not. I've not. I haven't. I'ven't.

Your channel is so awesome 🤩

The setting determines my usage a lot of the time. If I'm speaking at a Homeowners Association meeting about a resolution banning flag poles I'll say "I WILL NOT stand for this tyranny!" but if I'm talking to my buddy about fixing my own car I'll say "I ain't gonna do that shit, dude." And if I wasn't commenting online I wouldn't even type "I'll say..." I would say "I'd be like..."

Many people are taught that contractions are improper and as a result, they underuse them even in speech. They don't even know how most of the contractions are properly pronounced, so when they read aloud a text they pronounce the full forms. The sad state of language teaching.

I was trying to explain to a Dutch friend why he can't just say "I'm." as a full sentence. But, I don't feel my explanation is right. I told him a contraction can't be a full sentence. But I figure there has to be a rule. We can say "Don't!" And it doesn't sound wrong. I guess it has to do with the Aux vs the Neg. I will have to rewatch the part of video that explains the difference and see if that will help me explain it to my friend better.

Love the examples used here! Especially the last one 😂

Watching this is quite enjoyable

I was really hoping to find you contracting “I shall not”. Somehow it seems to be common in my speech to say shant, much to friends mocking me, but I never know how that contraction is written. Sha’n’t? Shan’t?

4:05 In geordie (newcastle/gateshead) english, we use the contracted 'is' and 'are' for negative statements as well. E.g. geordies would say "You've not done your chores" and "I'll not go to the shop" whereas other people say "You haven't done your chores" and "I won't go to the shop". Geordie is a fantastic and weird accent. We use these phrases every day that sound Shakespearean to other people. But I'll not just prattle on about my hometown patriotism

Thank I for this channel

I hope , i will lear to speak acurately like this after listening these videos! Marvellous! woonderful!

A Brit calling a Dalek a robot? Now I've seen it all.

Best examples ever :)

Love this channel….

Dude, you are breaking my _brain._ I have been trying all my life to avoid contractions in written English, and now you show me just how much I am over-compensating. Thank you for teaching a teacher. I still love Data, though. 😉 Then again, I always tell my students to forget about the exceptions and just roll with the rules. Who cares about the 10% deviation that is generally tolerated if just sticking to the rule makes you 90% correct? I know I don't. Contraction intended.

My teachers used to like saying "ain't ain't a word". They would often use the question "If ain't is a word, than what is it a contraction of?" to try and shut down it's usage in the classrooms. This'll never hold up against the academics out there; but I did come up with an answer that got the teachers to think a little and, at the very least, not try to use that question anymore regarding the word "ain't". It IS a contraction... Take the 'a' from 'am' or 'are'... take the 'i' from 'is' or 'will', and finish it up with n't from not [a i n't]. Because ain't is usually used as "am not", "are not", "is not" and "will not"... There are other uses, but these are the most common here in my part of Michigan.

5:30 Basically, contractions *_don’t_* like to occur at the end of a statement; which makes sense: *_They’re_* reduced forms, typically reserved to the middle of a sentence/utterance, where not much attention is, typically, paid to them; or, *_SOMETIMES,_* to the beginning; but, *_NEVER_* to the end 🤔.

Thanks for that ending!

I had a job where we had to put notes into software that had only been used in one call centre in Indian before coming to Australia. It didn't allow apostrophes in call notes. I found it almost unusable, a quick simple notwas all that was needed but I had to use either such formal English as to use absolutely no contractions, or such messy English as contractions with no apostrophes. From there I noticed that few staff used them in speech and then the difference in the intonation they used. It became an unexplainable, ludicrous reality break between the Indian English used by most of our staff, and how foreign it sounded to many older Australian callers. It led to the completely ridiculous situation of older callers that had little exposure to Indian English, asking to speak to local staff and being presumed to be racist. The complete lack of understanding institutionally or at the coalface that the "very good English" spoken by many Indian staff that was very good, and completely understandable with a little familiarity, sounded not just foreign, but possibly rude, or sarcastic, or even robotic to people with no familiarity. Your point about the robotic sound of the lack of contractions, is in that context a revelation to me. I had noticed the the even, unstressed intonation used could sound cold and emotionless and even robotic to some callers, the lack of contractions would be taken the exact same way by some, and reinforce the effect.

I use 'tis from time to time myself. Didn't know it was uncommon, if not completely forgotten.

Correction: 4:56 "'Isn't' is still used, very much, in questions." Then song, "Isn't she lovely" "Isn't she lovely" not question (?) but exclamation (!).

Touched on but not fully explored is just how important contractions are in giving the idea that all is well, all is normal, all is friendly. As soon as the contracted word is fully stressed then there is a mood change and an extra beat to the rhythm. ‘I’m going to town” v “I am going to town.” “I’ve done the washing” v “I have done the washing.” “I’ll pick up the kids” v “I will pick up the kids”. I urged my students to always use contractions because the non-contracted form is a powerful way of manipulating communication and as such should only be used if they really need to reinforce or make a point. It can often be read as anger and hence the need to always use the friendliness of contractions.

I wouldn’t’ve thought about this today if this video hadn’t’ve popped up