In Contractions^x

My take. I've tried to go for a natural conversational British English style.Remember that there are usually many different ways of expressing the same thing. Also, contractions are much more natural for spoken language. A: Let's go over there and see whether they rent kayaks. B: It...

.The H of hours is always silent. Perhaps is of course one word, and the second syllable is stressed; those who drop the H probably do so from contraction. I don't think preceding Rs are relevant. Look for dropped or weakened Hs in unstressed syllables: inhibition, rehabilitation, etc.

Thank you for that, Anon. Though as a speaker of BrE, I'm concerned that the mention of "pants" has generated the automatic tag "contractions".MrP

it should also be 'who's got his pants', not whose! you use 'who's' as a contraction of 'who has' or 'who is', and you use 'whose' as a possesive form of who ("to whom do these pants belong?" = "whose pants are these?") BL x

"Pizza's my favorite food" is very informal -- I would only use a contraction like this when writing dialog.

Hi Grammarguy,Welcome!By the way, you are not related to Grammar Geek; are you?<<>>"Pizza's" is also a contraction: "Pizza's my favorite food." "This is John's restaurant"- it's correct becasue it is a contraction to a person. I have a...

"Pizzas" is the plural: "We sell pizzas." "Pizza's" is a possessive: "The pizza's topping was delicious." "Pizza's" is also a contraction: "Pizza's my favorite food."

I think the p's and q's argument is most salient here. The apostrophe is used for the sake of clarity. While conventionally used for the possessive, the apostrophe is also used to indicate vernacular omissions and contractions, such as in the cases of "Ol' Dirty ***" or...

It's ok in theory(but looks a bit awkward in writing. Ok if very informal) but rather pointless as the s's sounds absolutely identical to s is. So the contraction doesn't actually contract anything. If you really want to write this for some reason, just do the usual form, it makes no...

Which one is correct? 1- James's not coming tonight. 2- James' not coming tonight. Or should we avoid the contraction here?