{"id":8254,"date":"2013-12-22T12:57:35","date_gmt":"2013-12-22T12:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/12\/22\/contractions\/"},"modified":"2013-12-22T12:57:35","modified_gmt":"2013-12-22T12:57:35","slug":"contractions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/12\/22\/contractions\/","title":{"rendered":"Contractions"},"content":{"rendered":"

My rule on contractions: though permissible in informal writing such as blogging, they ought to be avoided or used sparingly in formal writing.  I  came across the following sentence in a well-written piece in a serious publication. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

"Heroic" would have pleased Ranke, who'd died nine years earlier. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The contraction distracted me, so much so that I am now writing about it.  And note that in the very same sentence we find the uncontracted "would have."  This is better:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

"Heroic" would have pleased Ranke, who had died nine years earlier. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nRelated articles<\/legend>\n
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\"\"<\/a>The Double 'L'<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Double Contractions<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Promise or Lie? Falsehood or Half-Truth?<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My rule on contractions: though permissible in informal writing such as blogging, they ought to be avoided or used sparingly in formal writing.  I  came across the following sentence in a well-written piece in a serious publication.  "Heroic" would have pleased Ranke, who'd died nine years earlier.  The contraction distracted me, so much so that … Continue reading “Contractions”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}