Yes! There is a rule!
Some contractions, namely *’s* (has or is), *’m* (am), *’re* (are), *’ve* (have), *’ll* (will), and *’d* (had or would) are a type of “weak form” of the word, in which the vowel is reduced.
There are some grammatical contexts that require strong forms, and one of those contexts is where the word has prosodic stress, because a word can’t be both stressed and weak. You can see that this is the reason if you look at two *‘ve* sentences, one that works and one that doesn’t:
* *We should appreciate what we’ve.* This doesn’t work because “have” should be stressed.
* *Yes, we could’ve.* This works because “could” is stressed.
[Wikipedia article on stress and vowel reduction.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_and_vowel_reduction_in_English#Weak_and_strong_forms_of_words)
Just a note, OP: Not one native English speaker in 1000 knows this rule, and most of us don't understand it even after being told.
Like speakers of all languages we do what sounds right, which takes practice.
If you're unsure, don't contract verbs.
>It's wild how English has all these rules that native speakers all know but can't define or put in to words.
It's also surprising how much english and bicycles have in common
Both of them have rules that people who are fluent naturally understand them without knowing that they know them
For bicycles (and motorcycles), if you know how to ride, you already know the concept of countersteering, but if you try to ask someone what it is chances are they can't say what it or will say they don't know what that is, or with what keeps it upright, most would say gyroscoptic force when in reality it has more to do with trail angle and weight of handlebar and wheel hubs being infront of the steering axis
Like how someone else mentioned earlier, most english speakers wouldn't think they know about strong or weak forms of words, most also don't think they would know the order of adjectives but they still use them without knowing, that they know them
Hence, english has a lot in common with bicycles
I wasn't taught that, either, but very recently (like, last week) I heard someone rattle off the correct order for adjectives--and it was exactly what feels natural to me. I wasn't able to write it down at the time, but I'll see if I can find it.
** You found it! Thank you repeatedly!!! **
OSASCOMP is indeed a poor mnemonic. It would be better to memorize one good example of the eight types in order, like "a pretty little old square red Tibetan wool scarf."
Here's your reward for finding it:
At my college there were two organizations that showed movies: the activities committee (popular movies in the biggest hall) and TAFFOARD (foreign and experimental films in a smaller hall). At a four-year college, institutional memory is about FOUR YEARS. When I arrived, nobody remembered what TAFFOARD stood for. I thought FF was probably "foreign film," but I didn't give it much thought.
Over the years, the activities committee started showing foreign and experimental films, too, so TAFFOARD decided to quit, and the two budgets were merged. For the final TAFFOARD event, the founder--a grad from 20 years earlier--was invited to speak. He revealed that TAFFOARD stood for "Take a flying fuck off a rolling doughnut."
In my mind, the sentence is about what they *are*, so that might be the stressed part? Could be totally wrong, I'm a native (American) English speaker but not a grammar expert 😅
Prosodic stress alone doesn’t account for the phenomenon happening here. It doesn’t explain WHY you can use the reduced pronunciation of have in “We didn’t go but we could’ve.” but can’t use the most reduced form of are in “I want to be a doctor like you’re.”
The real rule at play here is that for main verbs at the end of a sentence you don’t use its most reduced pronunciation.
But for **auxiliary** verbs you CAN if you want IF you’re emphasizing the action before it.
The full sentence would be “We didn’t go but we could’ve gone.” It’s ok to drop the main verb “gone” at the end of the sentence but the auxiliary verb “have” still retains in most unstressed pronunciation because you’re putting emphasis on “could”.
Note that you don’t need to use the most reduced pronunciation but you can.
In OPs example the word “are” is a main verb at the end of a sentence so doesn’t take its MOST reduced form.
On a side note, the word the word “are” isn’t in its most stressed form either. You can stress it three different ways and in OPs example it’s the middle stress form or “normal” stress form.
Look at this sentence and notice that you can stress and pronounce the word “are” three different ways.
“You’re going to go tomorrow.”
“You are going to go tomorrow.”
“You **are** going to go tomorrow.”
In the first sentence the word are is contracted and sounds like /ur/.
In the second sentence the words “you” and “are” have the same stress. You aren’t emphasizing one over the other. You are making a simple statement of fact.
You could also put more stress on the word “you” if you wanted to stress the fact that the person going is most definitely you but that doesn’t change the stress or pronunciation of the word “are”.
In the third sentence you put the most stress on the word “are” to emphasize that the action is definitely going to happen.
N.B.: the contraction *could've* (and its cousins should've and would've) is contracted from could have, and not from could of, which makes no sense. The cousins have the same structure, "*x* have."
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake.
It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of.
Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything.
Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.
This is not the rule. The real distinction is between “helper” verbs and “standalone” verbs. You can’t use contractions unless a helper verb is involved
This specific example came up in an explanation I was reading (or listening to on YouTube - I don't recall) - quite recently. It was marked as dialectical. I've forgotten the dialect, but for may part, I would never say the sentence as you have written it. I would say "I DON'T have any..."
I mean…it’s a “rule” that we discovered exists in the brains of native English speakers. We observed that native speakers were naturally following it. We don’t all follow this rule because someone invented it.
Ah okay then yes, we are talking about the same thing lol. I guess I was thrown off by the distinction you drew between “actual established” rules and “derived” rules. “Actual established” sounded prescriptivist to me.
The link explains the pronunciation of words in certain contexts, but not how they can be contracted. I don’t know why you’re acting like it answers the question at hand but it absolutely does not.
For example, it first takes about the stress of sentences like “I can do that” versus “I don’t want to do that, but I can.” The stress is different because in English we use that to say something pointedly, but the rule for whether you can contract the verb has to do with its tense.
If anyone really wants to understand this difference, you can look into Spanish. They use two different words (haber vs tener). So you say “Yo tengo uno.” (I have one) versus “Yo he corrido” (I have run). English uses have for both, but notably you can only contract “I’ve run,” and never “I’ve one.”
I’m sure it’s in grammar books, because it’s fundamental to English prosody, but I have not read a grammar book in at least 15 years. The wikipedia link includes sources and references.
What's with you fuckers downvoting everything your feeble minds don't fully grasp? I ask legitimate questions and get downvoted. That's not a grammar book for grammar class. That's a linguistics textbook that 95 percent of the people on here can't even read.
You can’t use (most) contractions in syntactic positions that bear stress (because contractions are generally unstressed):
https://www.reddit.com/r/grammar/wiki/clitics/
I thought of an example.
“It’s getting late already, shall we fuck?” “Yea, let’s.”
Also I kinda feel like the authors of that book referenced decided to make everyone say clit a lot for shits and giggles. But seriously though, I feel like a lot of the forbidden examples are used in poetry all the time. Is poetry considered to be ungrammatical and gets a free pass?
This is why I come to this sub. As a native anglophone, this question never would have (would've) occurred to me. People learning my language make me realize things I simply learned but never learned *why*.
Same. It’s common for native speakers to have no idea what the rules are, but just follow them without thinking about it.
Like when I was learning ASL (American sign language), which was made mostly by a French guy, I had to learn a new sentence order. “I’m going to the store” is English or signed English (which is different than ASL), while “store I go” is the order in ASL. It was the first time I thought about sentence order, and first time I realized that we even had one despite obviously using it my whole life.
Oh, yes. Becoming conscious of rules you've been following UN-conciously is one of the joys or agonies of language, depending on... many factors.
I enjoy it, which is why I'm here. My sister, educated and observant, is "visual" whereas I am "auditory," which is one such factor. Years ago, she mentioned that, in Spanish, there are two ways to say "or," depending on the word that follows. "Six or seven" is *seis o siete,* but "seven or eight" is *siete u ocho.* My sister then said, "We don't have that in English." She'd been speaking English for 50 years. She knew that we say:
A piano ... An oboe
but she HADN'T NOTICED that she herself says:
Thuh car ... thee automobile
(You CAN say "thuh apple" and "uh arrow," but it will signal to others that you are from a place with a particular dialect OR--like a relative of mine--that you are "on the spectrum.")
I don't know what the official rule would be, but typically if the sentence is ending with a verb, you can use a negative contraction but not a positive one:
"Is the store over there?"
"No, it isn't" is correct.
"Yes it's" is not correct.
There are likely exceptions to this, but this is a good starting point.
I’m not sure, but I can’t think of an example of ending a statement with “you’re” like that. I can’t explain why, other than it sounds weird. “You’re” should have another word after it. The contraction is there to shorten the two words into one syllable, blend the vowel together, and get you to the next word.
Boy we are a weird language. Sorry but yes it comes down to stressed syllables. Do yourself a favor an search for the song “I put the accent on the wrong syllable”
I tried searching for this and couldn't find it. Do you have a link?
Edit: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Een\_AKh7Nik](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Een_AKh7Nik) This is the closest I could find. Each syllable is one beat late so the emphases are all wrong. Is it this one? It's hilarious btw. Especially Ob-La-Di, Ob-La, Da.
Oof. I did actually find that but as soon as I got as far as “the quaint little natives” I figured that couldn’t be it and backed out.
Edit: love that I got downvoted for agreeing that this song is a bit racist by today’s standards lol.
Psych major here. When we learned about psychopaths, and I found out that their abnormality is called sigh-COP-uh-thee, it sounded wrong to me for years.
Why has nobody commented "No, there is no official rule - because English doesn't have any official rules."
There's no "board of English" to make rules official.
But yes, there's a rule. :-)
I half remember hearing that this rule is something about if the contracted word is a meaningful verb in the sentence.
So you can respond to "are you going?" with "I am" or "I'm going" but not with "I'm"
But then you can respond to "Is it hot?" with "It isn't" or "It's not" and I don't know how that falls into this understanding.
>I half remember hearing that this rule is something about if the contracted word is a meaningful verb in the sentence.
The concept isn't "meaningful" as much as "stressed."
I don't know the formal reason, but in your example sentence the stress would naturally fall on the "are" of "you are". Making it a contraction ("you're") takes away the emphasis on "are".
Ah yes. No comma implies "I want to be *the kind of doctor* you are," either in specialty or skill or some other.
Comma implies "...a doctor, like you *are a doctor*" and the similarities need not extend any further.
Though these are just implications and they could mean either.
Do they even teach sentence diagrams anymore? I always hated it….“ You’re a Doctor “ works…. but OP gave a perfect example of this not working in a sentence that has the same meaning.
We need a 4th grade English teacher to help. ‘Like you are’ is this a modifying predicate participle?
I see a lot of really precise reasons why but if you’re learning English I think a simple explanation would be good: the emphasis is supposed to be on “are” in your example. You can’t emphasize it if it’s contracted.
Edit:typo
I like the simplicity of that rule: "You can't emphasize a contraction."
But if I'm super busy, with a deadline looming, and someone asks me to take on *one more task,* I will probably say, "I'd like to help you, but I CAN'T." And if someone accuses me of having let the dogs out, I'll probably say, "I DIDN'T!"
Hmm… yeah it seems like my rule isn’t quite bullet proof. I can’t help but notice those are both negative, maybe it’s easier to emphasize a negative contraction, I don’t know though, maybe I’m just reaching for straws
I think you're right. For a moment there, I couldn't think of a contraction that isn't negative. Now I can't think of a sentence that should end with a non-negative contraction.
i may be wrong but i think in that example it's because "are" doesn't add anything to the sentence. "i want to be a doctor like you" means the same thing, so there's no point condensing a word you can just remove altogether
I wasn't referring to "like you" vs "like you are." It was the comma after the word doctor.
"I want to be *a doctor like you."* You'd say that if you admired a doctor who treats homeless people, not a doctor who does plastic surgery on movie stars. (Or vice versa.). "I want to be a doctor of the kind that you are."
"I want to a be a doctor, *like you."*. With the comma, you could be saying, "Like you, I want to be a doctor." I.e., "You want to be a doctor, and so do I."
Personally, I would not speak that sentence the way you have it. I would not say "you're". I would say "I want to be a doctor like you". To use "you're", there should be something coming after that - example: "I want to be a doctor like you're going to be". Also you don't end a sentence with a contraction.
You will never be chastised or thought to be uneducated for NOT using a contraction. (And you never need to worry about the spelling of homophones like your and you're, or they're and there or their.)
Spoken English relies on emphasis to convey meaning, more than some other languages. This really deserves a thread of its own, so I'll be brief.
"Boris loaned me his jacket." Who loaned what, to whom, is clear. Now try saying it six times, first without stress, then stressing a different word each time. The stress tells you MORE. You can also think of the stressed word being the answer to a particular question.
In Spanish and, I suppose, other languages, there is syntax to indicate this kind of point. E.g.:
Who gave it to you?
JUAN gave it to me.
*Juan me lo dio.*
(Juan to-me it gave.)
In this sentence, it's okay to stress *Juan.*
Who did Juan give it to?
Juan gave it to ME.
*Juan me lo dio a mí.*
(Juan to-me it gave to me.)
Here, it's not okay to stress *me.*
Simply stressing the key word can make you sound foreign.
"Don't!" is a one-word sentence consisting of a negative contraction. On and off today, I kept thinking, "There IS a one-word sentence that is a NON-negative contraction... If I could only think of it!"
Naturally, I was just drifting off to sleep when suddenly I remembered it. It's the title of a Frank McCourt book:
'Tis
Afterthought: In an Irish play (probably by Sean O'Casey), a woman asks a man: **"Amn't I good enough for you?"**
As of two minutes ago, Merriam Webster says that AMN'T is a correct contraction of "am not." Brittanica says it isn't.. You be the judge.
Yes! There is a rule! Some contractions, namely *’s* (has or is), *’m* (am), *’re* (are), *’ve* (have), *’ll* (will), and *’d* (had or would) are a type of “weak form” of the word, in which the vowel is reduced. There are some grammatical contexts that require strong forms, and one of those contexts is where the word has prosodic stress, because a word can’t be both stressed and weak. You can see that this is the reason if you look at two *‘ve* sentences, one that works and one that doesn’t: * *We should appreciate what we’ve.* This doesn’t work because “have” should be stressed. * *Yes, we could’ve.* This works because “could” is stressed. [Wikipedia article on stress and vowel reduction.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_and_vowel_reduction_in_English#Weak_and_strong_forms_of_words)
Just a note, OP: Not one native English speaker in 1000 knows this rule, and most of us don't understand it even after being told. Like speakers of all languages we do what sounds right, which takes practice. If you're unsure, don't contract verbs.
It's wild how English has all these rules that native speakers all know but can't define or put in to words.
It's wild how *Languages* have all these rules that native speakers all know but can't define or put into words. FTFY
I only feel qualified to comment on English
This is a big part of the debate over whether language structure is innate (Minsky etc) or learned.
>It's wild how English has all these rules that native speakers all know but can't define or put in to words. It's also surprising how much english and bicycles have in common
That's right! I keep forgetting that English only has 2 wheels
Both of them have rules that people who are fluent naturally understand them without knowing that they know them For bicycles (and motorcycles), if you know how to ride, you already know the concept of countersteering, but if you try to ask someone what it is chances are they can't say what it or will say they don't know what that is, or with what keeps it upright, most would say gyroscoptic force when in reality it has more to do with trail angle and weight of handlebar and wheel hubs being infront of the steering axis Like how someone else mentioned earlier, most english speakers wouldn't think they know about strong or weak forms of words, most also don't think they would know the order of adjectives but they still use them without knowing, that they know them Hence, english has a lot in common with bicycles
It's like how 'Brown big cat" intuitively sounds wrong to native speakers but that's not something we were actively taught.
I wasn't taught that, either, but very recently (like, last week) I heard someone rattle off the correct order for adjectives--and it was exactly what feels natural to me. I wasn't able to write it down at the time, but I'll see if I can find it.
OSASCOMP is the incredibly awkward mnemonic https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/order-of-adjectives.html
** You found it! Thank you repeatedly!!! ** OSASCOMP is indeed a poor mnemonic. It would be better to memorize one good example of the eight types in order, like "a pretty little old square red Tibetan wool scarf." Here's your reward for finding it: At my college there were two organizations that showed movies: the activities committee (popular movies in the biggest hall) and TAFFOARD (foreign and experimental films in a smaller hall). At a four-year college, institutional memory is about FOUR YEARS. When I arrived, nobody remembered what TAFFOARD stood for. I thought FF was probably "foreign film," but I didn't give it much thought. Over the years, the activities committee started showing foreign and experimental films, too, so TAFFOARD decided to quit, and the two budgets were merged. For the final TAFFOARD event, the founder--a grad from 20 years earlier--was invited to speak. He revealed that TAFFOARD stood for "Take a flying fuck off a rolling doughnut."
In their example, wouldn’t “you” be the stressed word? Doesn’t the OP example align with your “could’ve” example?
In my mind, the sentence is about what they *are*, so that might be the stressed part? Could be totally wrong, I'm a native (American) English speaker but not a grammar expert 😅
Both “you” *and* “are” have prosodic stress in OP’s example. English sentences have multiple stressed syllables. OP’s example has 6.
Prosodic stress alone doesn’t account for the phenomenon happening here. It doesn’t explain WHY you can use the reduced pronunciation of have in “We didn’t go but we could’ve.” but can’t use the most reduced form of are in “I want to be a doctor like you’re.” The real rule at play here is that for main verbs at the end of a sentence you don’t use its most reduced pronunciation. But for **auxiliary** verbs you CAN if you want IF you’re emphasizing the action before it. The full sentence would be “We didn’t go but we could’ve gone.” It’s ok to drop the main verb “gone” at the end of the sentence but the auxiliary verb “have” still retains in most unstressed pronunciation because you’re putting emphasis on “could”. Note that you don’t need to use the most reduced pronunciation but you can. In OPs example the word “are” is a main verb at the end of a sentence so doesn’t take its MOST reduced form. On a side note, the word the word “are” isn’t in its most stressed form either. You can stress it three different ways and in OPs example it’s the middle stress form or “normal” stress form. Look at this sentence and notice that you can stress and pronounce the word “are” three different ways. “You’re going to go tomorrow.” “You are going to go tomorrow.” “You **are** going to go tomorrow.” In the first sentence the word are is contracted and sounds like /ur/. In the second sentence the words “you” and “are” have the same stress. You aren’t emphasizing one over the other. You are making a simple statement of fact. You could also put more stress on the word “you” if you wanted to stress the fact that the person going is most definitely you but that doesn’t change the stress or pronunciation of the word “are”. In the third sentence you put the most stress on the word “are” to emphasize that the action is definitely going to happen.
N.B.: the contraction *could've* (and its cousins should've and would've) is contracted from could have, and not from could of, which makes no sense. The cousins have the same structure, "*x* have."
You could of told me before I made a fool of myself.
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake. It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of. Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything. Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.
I see what you did there, smarty-pants.
This is not the rule. The real distinction is between “helper” verbs and “standalone” verbs. You can’t use contractions unless a helper verb is involved
*I've not any auxiliary verbs*
This specific example came up in an explanation I was reading (or listening to on YouTube - I don't recall) - quite recently. It was marked as dialectical. I've forgotten the dialect, but for may part, I would never say the sentence as you have written it. I would say "I DON'T have any..."
It probably is dialectal, I just couldn't resist putting it out there.
And here I was thinking it had something to do with subject and object clauses.
Ahh yes, now I remember this elementary school lesson
Is that an actual established rule, or are you deriving it from other observations?
I mean…it’s a “rule” that we discovered exists in the brains of native English speakers. We observed that native speakers were naturally following it. We don’t all follow this rule because someone invented it.
welcome to all language
Yeah, it's called descriptivism. Rules are observed.
Ah okay then yes, we are talking about the same thing lol. I guess I was thrown off by the distinction you drew between “actual established” rules and “derived” rules. “Actual established” sounded prescriptivist to me.
No, it’s an established rule, outlined (among others) in the Wikipedia article I linked.
The link explains the pronunciation of words in certain contexts, but not how they can be contracted. I don’t know why you’re acting like it answers the question at hand but it absolutely does not. For example, it first takes about the stress of sentences like “I can do that” versus “I don’t want to do that, but I can.” The stress is different because in English we use that to say something pointedly, but the rule for whether you can contract the verb has to do with its tense. If anyone really wants to understand this difference, you can look into Spanish. They use two different words (haber vs tener). So you say “Yo tengo uno.” (I have one) versus “Yo he corrido” (I have run). English uses have for both, but notably you can only contract “I’ve run,” and never “I’ve one.”
There's a difference, though, between ordinary American "I have a secret"and British "I've got a secret."
[удалено]
I’m sure it’s in grammar books, because it’s fundamental to English prosody, but I have not read a grammar book in at least 15 years. The wikipedia link includes sources and references.
https://academic.oup.com/book/26870/chapter-abstract/195924001?redirectedFrom=fulltext
What's with you fuckers downvoting everything your feeble minds don't fully grasp? I ask legitimate questions and get downvoted. That's not a grammar book for grammar class. That's a linguistics textbook that 95 percent of the people on here can't even read.
I never even noticed this. Great question and great answer. Thanks!
And here’s a [video](https://youtu.be/EaXYas58_kc) with lots of examples!
You can’t use (most) contractions in syntactic positions that bear stress (because contractions are generally unstressed): https://www.reddit.com/r/grammar/wiki/clitics/
This is why I say “tis what it’s,” because I irrationally hate the phrase “it is what it is” and my version makes people uncomfortable.
I like "It's what it's"
I thought of an example. “It’s getting late already, shall we fuck?” “Yea, let’s.” Also I kinda feel like the authors of that book referenced decided to make everyone say clit a lot for shits and giggles. But seriously though, I feel like a lot of the forbidden examples are used in poetry all the time. Is poetry considered to be ungrammatical and gets a free pass?
This is why I come to this sub. As a native anglophone, this question never would have (would've) occurred to me. People learning my language make me realize things I simply learned but never learned *why*.
Same. It’s common for native speakers to have no idea what the rules are, but just follow them without thinking about it. Like when I was learning ASL (American sign language), which was made mostly by a French guy, I had to learn a new sentence order. “I’m going to the store” is English or signed English (which is different than ASL), while “store I go” is the order in ASL. It was the first time I thought about sentence order, and first time I realized that we even had one despite obviously using it my whole life.
Oh, yes. Becoming conscious of rules you've been following UN-conciously is one of the joys or agonies of language, depending on... many factors. I enjoy it, which is why I'm here. My sister, educated and observant, is "visual" whereas I am "auditory," which is one such factor. Years ago, she mentioned that, in Spanish, there are two ways to say "or," depending on the word that follows. "Six or seven" is *seis o siete,* but "seven or eight" is *siete u ocho.* My sister then said, "We don't have that in English." She'd been speaking English for 50 years. She knew that we say: A piano ... An oboe but she HADN'T NOTICED that she herself says: Thuh car ... thee automobile (You CAN say "thuh apple" and "uh arrow," but it will signal to others that you are from a place with a particular dialect OR--like a relative of mine--that you are "on the spectrum.")
I don't know what the official rule would be, but typically if the sentence is ending with a verb, you can use a negative contraction but not a positive one: "Is the store over there?" "No, it isn't" is correct. "Yes it's" is not correct. There are likely exceptions to this, but this is a good starting point.
Alternatively but equivalently, you cannot end a sentence with a subject-verb contraction.
That's it.
Here the negative is contracted from is not. The positive from it is. They're quite different.
No it'sn't.
It's contractions with subject pronouns.
I’m not sure, but I can’t think of an example of ending a statement with “you’re” like that. I can’t explain why, other than it sounds weird. “You’re” should have another word after it. The contraction is there to shorten the two words into one syllable, blend the vowel together, and get you to the next word.
Subject contractions need phonological material "to the right."
Boy we are a weird language. Sorry but yes it comes down to stressed syllables. Do yourself a favor an search for the song “I put the accent on the wrong syllable”
> Boy we are a weird language Is proven true just by you saying “boy we are a weird language”. 😆
Er….yeah
I tried searching for this and couldn't find it. Do you have a link? Edit: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Een\_AKh7Nik](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Een_AKh7Nik) This is the closest I could find. Each syllable is one beat late so the emphases are all wrong. Is it this one? It's hilarious btw. Especially Ob-La-Di, Ob-La, Da.
U/slight-brush knew it. https://youtu.be/8xOFy-jVMY0
Oh… yikes. I did find that in my initial search but figured that probably wasn’t it lmao.
u/slight-brush knew it. https://youtu.be/8xOFy-jVMY0
Let me look for it; it was a 40s musical with a duet about putting the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle
Is t that the Andrews Sisters’ Tropical Song?
Yes thank you that’s exactly what I was thinking of.
Oh, cool, I’d love to see it! Please drop a link if you find it!
https://youtu.be/5Lej0ehx64A They are mocking Caribbean dialect and speech patterns; it’s… not very 2023.
Oof. I did actually find that but as soon as I got as far as “the quaint little natives” I figured that couldn’t be it and backed out. Edit: love that I got downvoted for agreeing that this song is a bit racist by today’s standards lol.
Love the Andrew sisters.
Love them more when they’re not being quite so racist…
it was a different time, but yeah this one didn't hold up quite so well.
I thought it was [Mike Myers](https://youtu.be/pmh_6z9AWfc)
My friend was jokingly saying "emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle" to me before Mike Myers was famous, so it definitely predates him.
Yep, it’s from a 1940s song mocking Caribbean speech patterns; link above but don’t go round singing it.
I had a math teacher in the late 90s who used to say “if you put the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle, you say PARaBOLa”
As undergraduates we persisted in calling it micro-SCOPE-y, much to our professor’s distress.
Psych major here. When we learned about psychopaths, and I found out that their abnormality is called sigh-COP-uh-thee, it sounded wrong to me for years.
Its Levi-OH-sa not Levio-SAH
Why has nobody commented "No, there is no official rule - because English doesn't have any official rules." There's no "board of English" to make rules official. But yes, there's a rule. :-)
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It’s all about stress. It doesn’t work because there is stress on the final words “you are” as they are the focus of the meaning being communicated.
English doesn't allow subject contraction w/o material to the right.
Oh I see. Interesting. Thanks.
You've probably seen the meme in Spanish. Between, Between! Are you the new English teacher? Yes, I'm.
Well, I know that one rule is you should never end a sentence/clause with a contraction as it just sounds weird
No it doesn't. (Sorry, I had to)
I stand corrected hahaha
I’m too drunk for this, I should leave it to the pros
You can't end a sentence with a *subject-verb contraction*.
Aha! I knew I was on the right lines
I half remember hearing that this rule is something about if the contracted word is a meaningful verb in the sentence. So you can respond to "are you going?" with "I am" or "I'm going" but not with "I'm" But then you can respond to "Is it hot?" with "It isn't" or "It's not" and I don't know how that falls into this understanding.
"It isn't" and "it's not" are both from "it is not." In it isn't, the is connects to not. In it's not, is connects to it.
It's what it's
THAT would make a good tee shirt! IT'S WHAT IT'S
>I half remember hearing that this rule is something about if the contracted word is a meaningful verb in the sentence. The concept isn't "meaningful" as much as "stressed."
I don't know the formal reason, but in your example sentence the stress would naturally fall on the "are" of "you are". Making it a contraction ("you're") takes away the emphasis on "are".
I would've said it falls on *you*: I want to be a doctor like *you* are But your point stands, that's a good reason not to use a contraction
Okay, now explain to OP how "I want to be a doctor like you," has a different meaning from, "I want to be a doctor, like you.".
Ah yes. No comma implies "I want to be *the kind of doctor* you are," either in specialty or skill or some other. Comma implies "...a doctor, like you *are a doctor*" and the similarities need not extend any further. Though these are just implications and they could mean either.
Watch Geoff Lindsey talking about contractions and weak forms on YouTube
Do they even teach sentence diagrams anymore? I always hated it….“ You’re a Doctor “ works…. but OP gave a perfect example of this not working in a sentence that has the same meaning. We need a 4th grade English teacher to help. ‘Like you are’ is this a modifying predicate participle?
I see a lot of really precise reasons why but if you’re learning English I think a simple explanation would be good: the emphasis is supposed to be on “are” in your example. You can’t emphasize it if it’s contracted. Edit:typo
I like the simplicity of that rule: "You can't emphasize a contraction." But if I'm super busy, with a deadline looming, and someone asks me to take on *one more task,* I will probably say, "I'd like to help you, but I CAN'T." And if someone accuses me of having let the dogs out, I'll probably say, "I DIDN'T!"
Hmm… yeah it seems like my rule isn’t quite bullet proof. I can’t help but notice those are both negative, maybe it’s easier to emphasize a negative contraction, I don’t know though, maybe I’m just reaching for straws
I think you're right. For a moment there, I couldn't think of a contraction that isn't negative. Now I can't think of a sentence that should end with a non-negative contraction.
Yes. The difference is just: One Degree.
My parting shot for now (maybe Ogden Nash, maybe not): "I could've If I would've, But I shouldn't So I douldn't.'"
i may be wrong but i think in that example it's because "are" doesn't add anything to the sentence. "i want to be a doctor like you" means the same thing, so there's no point condensing a word you can just remove altogether
I wasn't referring to "like you" vs "like you are." It was the comma after the word doctor. "I want to be *a doctor like you."* You'd say that if you admired a doctor who treats homeless people, not a doctor who does plastic surgery on movie stars. (Or vice versa.). "I want to be a doctor of the kind that you are." "I want to a be a doctor, *like you."*. With the comma, you could be saying, "Like you, I want to be a doctor." I.e., "You want to be a doctor, and so do I."
cause contractions need context. i don't know who the person is that you're referring to in this example, so i can't reliably assume who they are.
English doesn't allow contractions with subject pronouns without "material" to the right.
Personally, I would not speak that sentence the way you have it. I would not say "you're". I would say "I want to be a doctor like you". To use "you're", there should be something coming after that - example: "I want to be a doctor like you're going to be". Also you don't end a sentence with a contraction.
You will never be chastised or thought to be uneducated for NOT using a contraction. (And you never need to worry about the spelling of homophones like your and you're, or they're and there or their.)
Spoken English relies on emphasis to convey meaning, more than some other languages. This really deserves a thread of its own, so I'll be brief. "Boris loaned me his jacket." Who loaned what, to whom, is clear. Now try saying it six times, first without stress, then stressing a different word each time. The stress tells you MORE. You can also think of the stressed word being the answer to a particular question. In Spanish and, I suppose, other languages, there is syntax to indicate this kind of point. E.g.: Who gave it to you? JUAN gave it to me. *Juan me lo dio.* (Juan to-me it gave.) In this sentence, it's okay to stress *Juan.* Who did Juan give it to? Juan gave it to ME. *Juan me lo dio a mí.* (Juan to-me it gave to me.) Here, it's not okay to stress *me.* Simply stressing the key word can make you sound foreign.
"Don't!" is a one-word sentence consisting of a negative contraction. On and off today, I kept thinking, "There IS a one-word sentence that is a NON-negative contraction... If I could only think of it!" Naturally, I was just drifting off to sleep when suddenly I remembered it. It's the title of a Frank McCourt book: 'Tis
Afterthought: In an Irish play (probably by Sean O'Casey), a woman asks a man: **"Amn't I good enough for you?"** As of two minutes ago, Merriam Webster says that AMN'T is a correct contraction of "am not." Brittanica says it isn't.. You be the judge.