280: Contractions

They’ll, we’ve, you’re, and even ain’t.

This week, we’re having contractions, but not the muscular kind — the word kind! We squash words together all the time, but why? And how well can you recognise them?

Daniel, Kylie, and Ben are gonna find out on this episode of Talk the Talk.

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Promo

Promo with Antonino Tati, 21 Mar 2017: Willy-Nilly

Cutting Room Floor

Cutting Room Floor 280: Contractions

We’re tackling the big questions. When did you learn to adult? Would you want to be a social justice trebuchet? How is that different from a catapult? What happens when you pee on something in D&D?

We spare a thought for companies that lose money over commas. Ben explains why he’s so competitive in games. He also goes a bit funny over the Voynich manuscript obeying Zipf’s Law and time paradoxes in Back to the Future. Fortunately there’s Sister Rosetta Tharpe to calm us down a bit.

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Show notes

The Oxford comma: Do you or don’t you?
http://publishingresourceguide.com/writers-life/writing-ideas-inspiration/oxford-comma-yes-or-no

Oxford commas, Nelson Mandela, and Stephen King
https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/oxford-commas-nelson-mandela-and-stephen-king/

The Best Shots Fired in the Oxford Comma Wars
http://mentalfloss.com/article/33637/best-shots-fired-oxford-comma-wars

An Oxford comma changed this court case completely
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/15/health/oxford-comma-maine-court-case-trnd/index.html

A Missing Oxford Comma Just Changed the Course of a Court Case
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/missing-oxford-comma-just-changed-course-court-case-180962551/

Infographic: The Oxford comma debate
https://www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/Infographic_The_Oxford_comma_debate_52369.aspx

6/ When @LouiseMensch reported on the FISA tap, she included details that implicated Putin’s own daughters, Carter Page and Paul Manafort. pic.twitter.com/TgeO9x1NvC
— Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) March 4, 2017

Wikipedia: Contraction (grammar)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraction_(grammar)

Major Trends in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics 1 (increased use of –n’t; interesting charts)
Google Books link

Amn’t
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-amn1.htm

The Story of Ain’t
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=7100#more-7100

The Cockney and His Dialect
https://www.jstor.org/stable/534097?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

London dialect in Dickens
http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item126779.html

Online Etymology Dictionary: won’t
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=won%27t

Why Does “Will Not” Become “Won’t”?
http://mentalfloss.com/article/55232/why-does-will-not-become-wont

Online Etymology Dictionary: contraction
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=contraction&searchmode=&p=3&allowed_in_frame=0

Word lengths are optimized for efficient communication
http://www.pnas.org/content/108/9/3526.long

Why “won’t” isn’t “willn’t”
http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/03/wont-willnt.html

Throw Mama From the Train: Favorite Line
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c1sgug6prw