Re: CHAT: which's

Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
> A quick googling turned up only 359 instances of "I'ven't", and only
dozens
> of forms like "you'ven't", "he'sn't", so it is indeed rare, and I should
> probably better stop doing it. It just seems I'm a natural contracter (or
is
> that "contractor"?).
>
That would contrácter.  A cóntractor hires guys to build houses, or bombs
for the Govt..  Nowadays there're also "independent contractors", which can
be a euphemism for anything from "just lost my regular job" to "call-girl".

But in point of fact, don't worry about it.  An idiosyncratic contraction
here or there does not impede communication, nor detract from your always
interesting subject matter.  Our emails aren't meant to be formal academic
disquisitions, try as we might. We really are not here to nit-pick one
another's grammar.  Shades of third grade.

Of course, should you at some point be preparing an article that will be
undergoing peer-review at the Intl. Journal of Italo-Squamish Linguistics,
you would do well to avoid contractions of any sort (as I'm sure you know--
academics are sooooo picky:-)))))))).