The French have the Academie de Sumzingoruzer to decide on what is to be accepted as "good" French and included in the national dictionary. I suppose our equivalent is the Oxford English Dictionary board (as seen on TV). Will they decide that "wont " is a proper word/spelling as it is in such common usage?
grayham ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Crowe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2007 9:08 AM Subject: [canals-list] Re: Internet Boaters Database + Coal & Diesel Boats (XP) Ah! English usage, another bit of pedantry from me I'm afraid. Is your quote a copy and paste? Either way the English is bad, it should be "is that formed", there is only one category being described. I'll go back to sleep now. BCNU David Crowe --- In [email protected], "Ron Jones" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > listz1 wrote: > > Thank you for that , > > so why isn't it " woln't " or even " wo'n't " ? > > > > grayham > > Beginning to regret asking lol > > I think double apostrophes are very rare - I only know of one (a boating one > at that - Foc's'le) > and I suspect word corruption was more so very long ago (after all who could > even write?) - one reference I found put won't "sometime before 1380" > I also found this nice quote "The first category of contractions is those > formed by an auxiliary verb or form of be plus the word not, with the o > replaced by an apostrophe, e.g. don't, can't, wouldn't, haven't. Notable > exceptions include won't, shan't and ain't. " > > Ron Jones > Process Safety & Development Specialist > Don't repeat history, unreported chemical lab/plant near misses at > http://www.crhf.org.uk Only two things are certain: The universe and > human stupidity; and I'm not certain about the universe. ~ Albert > Einstein >
