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I found the contraction of them to 'em interesting, and it flowed rather well. I wonder why it fell out of use?

by frosted-flakes 8y ago

wankeler 8y ago
It hasn’t. Not in England anyway. “Go get ‘em boy”
bovermyer 8y ago
It hasn't. I still hear it occasionally, and use it myself.
hellofunk 8y ago
I've been saying that all my life, as most of the people in my family and many friends.
richardfontana 8y ago
Etymologically speaking, it's not a contraction, but a preservation of an old 3rd person plural pronoun form (from Middle English "hem"): see https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/'em https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/'em
archon 8y ago
I don't think it ever fell out of use, it just isn't written. I'm from the US south, I use both "them" and "'em" in everyday speech depending on context, but I never write "'em", even where I would use it in speech. This is partially because "'em" in written form ends up conveying a slightly different tone or meaning than I might intend. "Them" is just a word; "'em" has more nuance and is more easily misunderstood.
- frosted-flakes 8y ago
  That's what I meant, in writing. Of course, it's still spoken that way.
  - mywittyname 8y ago
    There was a push in American education against using contractions in writing sometime in the earlier 20th century (perhaps earlier). The APA style guide says to avoid contractions in all official writing. People probably continued to write as they were taught in grammar school. If it were to make a comeback today, it would probably be in the form of "m". Like, "ru goin w/m?"; or "m ain't spiders. mr2 spiders."
meigwilym 8y ago
You don't give 'em hell?
ken 8y ago
Out of use? Not in my neck of the woods. I grepped a bunch of source code I have lying around, and I found it used in OpenSSL (3 times), the Postgres C driver, and the Snappy compressor -- the latter because it includes a complete copy of ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND!

I found the contraction of them to 'em interesting, and it flowed rather well. I wonder why it fell out of use?

wankeler 8y ago

It hasn’t. Not in England anyway. “Go get ‘em boy”

bovermyer 8y ago

It hasn't. I still hear it occasionally, and use it myself.

hellofunk 8y ago

I've been saying that all my life, as most of the people in my family and many friends.

richardfontana 8y ago

Etymologically speaking, it's not a contraction, but a preservation of an old 3rd person plural pronoun form (from Middle English "hem"): see https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/'em https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/'em

archon 8y ago

I don't think it ever fell out of use, it just isn't written. I'm from the US south, I use both "them" and "'em" in everyday speech depending on context, but I never write "'em", even where I would use it in speech. This is partially because "'em" in written form ends up conveying a slightly different tone or meaning than I might intend. "Them" is just a word; "'em" has more nuance and is more easily misunderstood.

frosted-flakes 8y ago
That's what I meant, in writing. Of course, it's still spoken that way.
- mywittyname 8y ago
  There was a push in American education against using contractions in writing sometime in the earlier 20th century (perhaps earlier). The APA style guide says to avoid contractions in all official writing. People probably continued to write as they were taught in grammar school. If it were to make a comeback today, it would probably be in the form of "m". Like, "ru goin w/m?"; or "m ain't spiders. mr2 spiders."

meigwilym 8y ago

You don't give 'em hell?

ken 8y ago

Out of use? Not in my neck of the woods. I grepped a bunch of source code I have lying around, and I found it used in OpenSSL (3 times), the Postgres C driver, and the Snappy compressor -- the latter because it includes a complete copy of ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND!