# Correctness of using "'s" as a contraction for is? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 29, 2003, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933 "2003-11-29T18:40:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933/1 "2003-11-29T18:40:19Z")
It’s pretty common to use a phrase like “Your car’s pretty fast” to say “Your car is pretty fast”, but is this a gramatically correct contraction? Can you add “'s” to any noun to make it a “noun is” contraction? ---
**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933/2 "2003-11-29T19:57:29Z")
It’s done so much that I’d be surprised if it was wrong, but I don’t know absolutely for sure that it’s right. “'s” can also mean “has” as in, “My car’s been in the garage for a week,” or show possession, as in, “Isn’t that Jim’s car?” ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933/3 "2003-11-29T20:17:02Z")
Well, showing possession is clearly a case where it’s supposed to be used. The others ones I’m not so sure about, even if it is exceedingly common. ---
**Author:** ![Indefatigable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9d8465/32.png) [@Indefatigable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indefatigable)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933/4 "2003-11-29T20:25:26Z")
“Your car’s pretty fast” is just replacing letters with an apostrophe. “car is” becomes “car’s”. The “has” situation is the same-- “car has” becomes “car’s”. The possessive situation is the only one where the apostrophe isn’t replacing letters that have been taken out. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933/5 "2003-11-29T20:25:36Z")
Looking in a dictionary will show you that “he’s” and “it’s” can mean “he is” or “he has” and “it is” or “it has,” respectively. I would imagine every native speaker of English has been taught this from the beginning of their schooling. Why would you doubt that it’s grammatically correct? And yes, you can essentially add apostrophe-s to any noun to form “noun is,” within normal bounds of making sense and not sounding ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![sundog66](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@sundog66](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sundog66)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933/6 "2003-11-29T22:37:43Z")
The acid test for whether or not any given construction is grammatically correct in a particular language is to find a group of native speakers of the language and see if they use it. If they do, then it is correct. Since virtually every native English speaker I know uses this construction all the time, it is to me obviously correct (in every dialect of English I know of). In contrast to what **Gary T** said above, I think that “schooling” does more to confuse kids about grammatical correctness than to help them understand what I stated in the above paragraph. Kids don’t learn their native language by having it formally taught to them in school, they learn it from their parents, from television, on the street, etc., and the native-speaker intuition gleaned from such immersion is infinitely more robust than anything gleaned from formal training. I can, however, think of some examples that may be borderline because of certain syntactic constraints: \*(?) The puppy that I want to buy’s black and white. Granted, “buy” is a verb here, not a noun, but this example shows that perhaps the contraction cannot be applied to the noun phrase “The puppy that I want to buy.” Let’s try constructing a noun phrase that ends in a noun and see what happens: \*(?) The dog in my room’s whining. This sounds a little better to me, but YMMV. Everyone speaks a slightly different dialect of English. In any case, examples like those cited above may be quite common in fast, colloquial speech. I’m sure there’s been a lot of research done on this phenomenon in the linguistic community, but I think that’s beyond the scope of this post. If, on the other hand, the OP means to ask whether these contractions are condoned by prescriptive grammarians, then I would say that it would probably be acceptable to them in casual speech, but in formal written prose, it may be deemed too casual. ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933/7 "2003-11-30T02:10:51Z")
[http://www.bartleby.com/68/91/1491.html](http://www.bartleby.com/68/91/1491.html) > [@](#): > > They sound like talk, and indeed they are characteristic of all but the most elevated levels of American English speech. Standard English employs them as well in writing, although conservative use limits them to Informal writing, and most other Standard use employs them sparingly in Semiformal and rarely or never in Formal writing. But there is nothing wrong with contractions in the right context, and there can sometimes be a good deal wrong without them. ---
**Author:** ![Fat\_Marrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ebca7d/32.png) [@Fat\_Marrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fat_Marrow)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933/8 "2003-11-30T02:43:40Z")
How about this one then: Which is the preferred choice for “It is not”… a) It isn’t b) It’s not and although I have never seen it, this has puzzled me since I was about 8 years old, is it not possiible to use “it’sn’t”. ---
**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933/9 "2003-11-30T02:50:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sundog66 \* > \*\*The acid test for whether or not any given construction is grammatically correct in a particular language is to find a group of native speakers of the language and see if they use it. If they do, then it is correct. Since virtually every native English speaker I know uses this construction all the time, it is to me obviously correct (in every dialect of English I know of). \*\* Dude, that is like so like true! I mean, me and my friends used to like talk about that all the time. We like used to be hard to like put up with. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933/10 "2003-11-30T02:56:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sundog66 \* > **The acid test for whether or not any given construction is grammatically correct in a particular language is to find a group of native speakers of the language and see if they use it. If they do, then it is correct.** Gotta disagree there. You can find groups of native English speakers who use forms that are not grammatically correct, e.g. whole towns or counties in Texas that routinely say “I seen.” \*\* > [@](#): > > In contrast to what **Gary T** said above, I think that “schooling” does more to confuse kids about grammatical correctness than to help them understand what I stated in the above paragraph. Kids don’t learn their native language by having it formally taught to them in school, they learn it from their parents, from television, on the street, etc., and the native-speaker intuition gleaned from such immersion is infinitely more robust than anything gleaned from formal training.\*\* Well, yes, speech is learned mainly in the way you say, but I don’t see how schooling would cause confusion – unless they only hear **incorrect** speech in everyday use, as in my example above. And my point in mentioning schooling was to underscore the legitimacy of the apostrophe-s = is construction questioned in the OP. \*\* > [@](#): > > I can, however, think of some examples that may be borderline because of certain syntactic constraints: > > \*(?) The puppy that I want to buy’s black and white. > > Granted, “buy” is a verb here, not a noun, but this example shows that perhaps the contraction cannot be applied to the noun phrase “The puppy that I want to buy.” Let’s try constructing a noun phrase that ends in a noun and see what happens: > > \*(?) The dog in my room’s whining. > > This sounds a little better to me, but YMMV. Everyone speaks a slightly different dialect of English.\*\* Although your examples would **sound** like an apostrophe-s construction because of elision, I’m not sure that careful writers would **write** them with those apostrophes. I think you’re dealing with apples compared to the oranges addressed in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![moriah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933/11 "2003-11-30T03:40:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Fat Marrow \* > \*\*How about this one then: > > Which is the preferred choice for “It is not”… > > a) It isn’t > b) It’s not > > and although I have never seen it, this has puzzled me since I was about 8 years old, is it not possiible to use “it’sn’t”. \*\* For the first part, [see (click) here.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=3770288#post3770288) For the second part regarding _it’sn’t_, it’sn’t a word. Peace. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933/12 "2003-11-30T03:59:38Z")
Of course, if a construction is used by a group of people, then it is “correct,” as far as anything in language can be correct or incorrect: linguists are strinctly anti-prescriptivist. However, there is this thing called Standard English, and it’s good to know it. ['s] can be used as a contraction for [is] when following a noun or pronoun. English phrase structure posits that a verbal phrase have a determiner as its specifier; my brain is dead right now, but I’m not thinking of any instances in which an unvoiced grammatical unit intercedes between a verbal phrase and its determiner… so there is nothing blocking cliticization… so it can happen. Though there’s technically no problem with it in this respect, cliticization is not in the mode of good formal English, and semantically it’s bad because it’s indistinguishable from the possessive 's. I am writing 20 pages on checking theory right now, and absolutely don’t have it in me to diagram the phrase “it is not,” and look for fancy diagrammatical type things… but I don’t think that the cluster “tsn” that pronounciation of “it’sn’t” would require is possible in English… also, double cliticizations don’t happen. I think. Brrr, time for a tea break. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933/13 "2003-11-30T04:06:56Z")
\*(?) The puppy that I want to buy’s black and white. Ah. Here, the phrase “is black and white” has an unspoken determiner, see? “It” is implied immediately beforehand. “The puppy that I want to buy PRO is black and white.” That’s why you can’t cliticize, in that example. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933/14 "2003-11-30T04:08:01Z")
Sorry for multiple posts: \*(?) The dog in my room’s whining Same thing. “The dog in my room PRO is whining.” ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933/15 "2003-11-30T05:45:38Z")
_'s wonderful, 's marvellous you should care for me! 's awful nice, 's paradise, 's what I love to see_ — George and Ira Gershwin, _'S Wonderful_ ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933/16 "2003-11-30T06:11:34Z")
I asked because I realized that the use of adding an apostrophe to any noun to make it a contraction is totally common in informal English, I wasn’t sure if was a technically correct thing from a grammarian point of view or if it were just a really common incorrect thing. I seemed to recall from school that there were a fixed number of gramatically correct contractions, and you couldn’t make them on the fly. Also, the structure is very rarely if ever used in the books I read, which suggests it’s incorrect. So, I guess the consensus is that it’s correct in that everyone uses it and everyone understands it, but is generally supposed to be avoided in more formal writing. ---
**Author:** ![moriah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933/17 "2003-11-30T06:15:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Walloon \* > \*\*\*'s wonderful, 's marvellous… > — George and Ira Gershwin, _'S Wonderful_ \*\* Though many web pages put that space in there, it should be 'Swonderful, 'smarvellous… 'Swell. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933/18 "2003-11-30T07:07:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SenorBeef \* > \*\*So, I guess the consensus is that it’s correct in that everyone uses it and everyone understands it, but is generally supposed to be avoided in more formal writing. \*\* In general, one is supposed to avoid contractions in formal writing. It’s not a grammar rule – it’s an issue of style. But there’s nothing technically incorrect with using such contractions. ---
**Author:** ![moriah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933/19 "2003-11-30T15:49:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pulykamell \* > \*\*In general, one is supposed to avoid contractions in formal writing. It’s not a grammar rule – it’s an issue of style. But there’s nothing technically incorrect with using such contractions. \*\* Hmm… what if contractions were used regularly in formal occasions? It might sound something like this… > [@](#): > > We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal, that **they’re** endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights… > [@](#): > > Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now **we’re** engaged in a great civil war. . .testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated. . . can long endure. **We’re** met on a great battlefield of that war. **We’ve** come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. **It’s** altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933/20 "2003-11-30T17:22:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Indefatigable \* > [BThe possessive situation is the only one where the apostrophe isn’t replacing letters that have been taken out. \*\* Actually the possessive is also a case of the apostrophe indicating letters that have been left out. After all that’s what _apostrophe_ means: A turning away, or a reference to something missing. To find the missing letters of the possessive you need to go back to Old English. The common ending in Old English for the possessive genitive was _es_. Thus, _Edwardes sword_ becomes \* Edward’s sword\*. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correctness-of-using-s-as-a-contraction-for-is/215933.md?page=2)