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this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025
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Asklemmy
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informal contractions are simply informal just because. there’s no real reason to consider them informal or not standard other than arbitrary rules.
“You shouldn’t’ve done that.” “It couldn’t’ve been him!” “I might’ve done that if you asked.”
I think if I took it too far and said that all contractions are basically acceptable, y'all'd'n't've agreed with me.
This looks aggressively welsh.
You all did not have
It would be "You all would not have" because "You all did not have agreed with me" doesn't make sense.
And I understood it perfectly the first time, which makes it acceptable by my lights.
I’d’n’t’ve had a single issue with it. In fact, I quite enjoy multi-contractions
I use this one unironically lol
Y’all’d’n’t’ve is one of my favorites
Isn't formality itself a bunch of arbitrary rules? There's rarely anything about any formality rule that makes the thing itself inherently more or less polite, the point is that choosing to follow those arbitrary rules communicates that you are (or aren't) choosing to be formal about the thing. It's like a giant tone marker for "respectfully"
I consider the arbitrary rules that we call formal English to just be the set of rules that lead to the most widely understood texts, so if you want to reach a broad audience, both across the world and across time, then keeping to those formal rules makes sense.
This is the one that still ends up in my technical writing.