Why do we use contractions like “It’s about time.” but not “Is’t about time?”
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We usually contract vowels, with some exceptions. The contraction is usually for phonetic reasons (meaning it sounds good), which is probably the reason your example is not used in English. English developed over time, not well thought out and methodically. So there’s always exceptions to just about every rule.
We usually contract vowels, with some exceptions. The contraction is usually for phonetic reasons (meaning it sounds good), which is probably the reason your example is not used in English. English developed over time, not well thought out and methodically. So there’s always exceptions to just about every rule.
The apostrophe represents the omitted letter or letters in the contraction. So the words “it is” are shown as “it’s” with the apostrophe representing the letter “I” that has been omitted from the word “is”. If we used the contraction “is’t”…the full version of your original sentence would be read “is it about time.” Now in an example question, “is it yours”, this would be a better example of when we could use your proposed contraction “is’t”, as in, “is’t yours?” If your question is simply why aren’t there more contractions, that I have absolutely no idea. The English language seems to be pretty full of illogical mechanisms and traditions. It seems that English adds official words and contractions to official dictionaries based on the commonality of their usage. For example, “y’all” wasn’t originally in the dictionary. From what I’ve read, it wasn’t used in print until the 1800s. I believe it is now officially in the dictionary due to the increasing popularity of it’s usage. Not sure if I really answered your question lol
We usually contract vowels, with some exceptions. The contraction is usually for phonetic reasons (meaning it sounds good), which is probably the reason your example is not used in English. English developed over time, not well thought out and methodically. So there’s always exceptions to just about every rule.
The apostrophe represents the omitted letter or letters in the contraction. So the words “it is” are shown as “it’s” with the apostrophe representing the letter “I” that has been omitted from the word “is”. If we used the contraction “is’t”…the full version of your original sentence would be read “is it about time.” Now in an example question, “is it yours”, this would be a better example of when we could use your proposed contraction “is’t”, as in, “is’t yours?” If your question is simply why aren’t there more contractions, that I have absolutely no idea. The English language seems to be pretty full of illogical mechanisms and traditions. It seems that English adds official words and contractions to official dictionaries based on the commonality of their usage. For example, “y’all” wasn’t originally in the dictionary. From what I’ve read, it wasn’t used in print until the 1800s. I believe it is now officially in the dictionary due to the increasing popularity of it’s usage. Not sure if I really answered your question lol
The apostrophe represents the omitted letter or letters in the contraction. So the words “it is” are shown as “it’s” with the apostrophe representing the letter “I” that has been omitted from the word “is”. If we used the contraction “is’t”…the full version of your original sentence would be read “is it about time.” Now in an example question, “is it yours”, this would be a better example of when we could use your proposed contraction “is’t”, as in, “is’t yours?” If your question is simply why aren’t there more contractions, that I have absolutely no idea. The English language seems to be pretty full of illogical mechanisms and traditions. It seems that English adds official words and contractions to official dictionaries based on the commonality of their usage. For example, “y’all” wasn’t originally in the dictionary. From what I’ve read, it wasn’t used in print until the 1800s. I believe it is now officially in the dictionary due to the increasing popularity of it’s usage. Not sure if I really answered your question lol
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