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Interestingly, American and British English disagree about the contraction of possessive "have". In American English, "have" and "had" can be contracted when th
by schoen 9y ago
Interestingly, American and British English disagree about the contraction of possessive "have". In American English, "have" and "had" can be contracted when they are used as an auxiliary (to have done something) but not when used as an possessive (to have something).
I've seen that before.
I'd seen that before.
But not:
∗I've three bicycles.
∗He'd problems with spelling in elementary school.
However, British English does allow this contraction!
The text creates a contraction of "have had" to "have'd", where the first is an auxiliary and the second is a possessive (following an adverb rather than the subject, so that the auxiliary can't contract), which I think is proscribed in both varieties of English:
?I certainly have'd my share of beauty
But I'm not positive about the British assessment of this.
- jszymborski 9y agoI'm Canadian, not from the UK, but I can't imagine contracting possessive nouns with had. Then again, this software contracts the with nouns rather aggressively ("this truth is so well fixed in t'minds of t'surrounding families") which is something I've never heard of either.
- gerdesj 9y agoTo be honest I think that would probably work best as: "this truth is so well fixed in t'minds of surrounding families" Simply drop the second definite article because it is redundant. Actually you could drop the first one as well. I can hear it in a generic North England accent and "in t'minds" would actually sound more like "int minds" but trying to run the word "of" into "t'" is a bit harder so it would probably be dropped entirely. I speak RP English with a touch of Mummerset ...
- gerdesj 9y agoYes all of those are "allowed" in en_GB. However, the second example you give would almost certainly be rendered as "He'd had problems ...". Yes, really! Thinking about it, it depends, for your first example: "Who on earth has three bicycles?" Tom asked, incredulously. "Well, I've got three", replied Jim. "I've three bicycles up for sale today" or "There're three bikes ..." or "There are three bikes". Some people find there're (there are) a bit dodgy. I don't think that en_GB or any other version really gets too hung up on things like that anymore. That said, some constructions do seem more natural than others. I have never heard or seen anyone try to use "have'd" in any modern form of English. You can get "I've had" from "I have had" or "I'd 've had" from "I would have had" or if you really want to drop the aitches then I'd 've 'ad. The last two are quite common in speech but not written.
- cholantesh 9y agoWhat about "He'd'd problems with spelling..."? Theoretically it seems fine.