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English is weird (lemmy.world)
submitted 11 months ago by Anonymouse@lemmy.world to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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I got hung up on contractions this morning regarding the word "you've". Normally, I'd say "you've got a problem", which expands to "you have got a problem", which isn't wrong, but I normally wouldn't say. Not contracting, I'd say "you have a problem", so then should I just say "you've a problem"? That sounds weird in my head. Is this just a US English problem?

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[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago

Yeah but that’s not English only. Try saying “de el” in Spanish and it sounds super wrong, for similar reasons. Sometimes contractions kill what they replace

this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2023
114 points (91.3% liked)

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