4 ms·
Just out of curiousity, why do you write "northward" as "north'ard"? The contraction doesn't make sense as you are omitting one character to replace it with ano
by celticninja 5y ago
Just out of curiousity, why do you write "northward" as "north'ard"? The contraction doesn't make sense as you are omitting one character to replace it with another. Is it to convey accent or is it common where you are to write it this way?
- kseistrup 5y agoHaha, I guess I have sung this sea shanty too often: https://youtu.be/He7X5jGt8lY https://youtu.be/He7X5jGt8lY
- kseistrup 5y ago— and I would like to add that in addition to omitted letters, the apostrophy can also indicate pronunciation (which is the case here).
- specialist 5y agoHuh. Your comments made me wonder if there are any English words, perhaps acknowledged in a dictionary, containing punctuation. A quick poking around suggests the answer is: no.
- celticninja 5y agoI guess that is what I meant by conveying accent, but pronunciation is the correct term, evidently escaping me at the time.
- ipaddr 5y agoI don't think that is true. Look at what your sentence fragment would be: the a'os'rophy can al'o in'i'ate pro'nun'i'tion If you leave out those letters you are omitting the important beginning sounds of each sylible. You generally want to highlight that sound and hide unnecessary characters.
- kseistrup 5y agoIf you had taken the time to listen to the video, you would have heard that the 'w' in 'northward' was indeed omitted in the pronunciation as well as in the spelling.
- leephillips 5y agoPretty awesome, that.
- resoluteteeth 5y ago> The contraction doesn't make sense as you are omitting one character to replace it with another. Are you saying that it's pointless to replace the w with an apostrophe because the number of characters doesn't change? If so, this is not how contractions work. The point isn't to reduce the number of characters in writing, the point is to indicate in writing where letters have been omitted in the spoken pronunciation of the contraction.
- StavrosK 5y ago> Are you saying that it's pointless to replace the w with an apostrophe because the number of characters doesn't change? That is something very common, isnot it?
- u801e 5y agoAnother common thing to do is replace the characters with something different: should have should've should of
- celticninja 5y agoAs I said elsewhere when I said convey accent, I meant pronunciation. So in that situation I understand it's use, I just hadn't heard it pronounced like that before.