By Conversations, Contractions

In the spoken word, the contraction occurs naturally and often. I would never use it in written form, unless quoting a person in conversation.

I've returned this thread to "regular" format, as the "question and answer" format can cause confusion, in a discussion of this kind, with a compound question.In response to the original question, I would agree with Forbes that in BrE books and academic journals, a...

Yes, I'll and we'll are contractions of I shall and we shall. Yes, teaching whom does irritate me a little but it's not tested as much so minor irritation only. I accept and use shall in my own conversations and writing but then I learned my grammar when you couldn't end a sentence with a...

My impression is that was never contracts. I would take When's the last time... as When is the last time ... -- I think. Forms of do do contract after question words in very casual conversation ('s, 'd). The 'd seems to me more common and more natural sounding than the 's. I placed...

The first one seems wrong at the end. Let me change it a little. Make another post if you still have a question about that last bit of the first one, OK? 1 "If it hadn't have been for the accident, I wouldn't have had to report late for work." 2 "If it wouldn't have been for the...

CalifJim wrote:My observation is that learners find these nearly impossible to incorporate in their own conversations. Any comments on that? It is possible for us to incorporate contractions in our conversations, say, at an English corner, though not that common. I actually often use the...

Thank you all for your comments, guys. CalifJim wrote:My observation is that learners find these nearly impossible to incorporate in their own conversations. Any comments on that?My opinion is that learners use contractions if they are used to them, for example because they hear them often. So...

I agree that it's useless to add apostrophe-s to indicate is when the word ends in a sibilant (i.e., would take -es to form a plural). In these cases the apostrophe-s looks very strange, and nothing is gained where pronunciation is concerned. But in all other cases (regardless of whether...

1. Sounds natural to me. 2. Sounds unnatural to me, but not for the same reason as Yankee gives. It's clearly an expression more often heard in conversation than seen in writing, so contractions should be used to make it sound more natural. I haven't the foggiest idea ... has a slightly...

Yes, they're all grammatically possible. However, as Bokeh pointed out, I doubt you'd hear any of them in natural conversations. Your suggestion that if people were to use that kind of construction, they'd tend to use the full version rather than the contraction was not correct - and that's...