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It's time to reconsider the general prohibition of contractions in articles.
Unless I've missed something, the most recent significant discussion about the topic was held in January and February of 2011.
I'm specifically addressing the use of contractions of auxiliary verbs, such as 'll and 're, along with their negative forms using the -n't negative suffix. The proposal is not related to other contractions such as ol' for old, 'em for them, ne'er for never, etc. Also, non-standard forms, such as ain't along with less common forms such as should've still require specific guidance. These, however, don't need to be dealt with under the topic of contractions generally.
The times have changed, and the sense that contractions are informal has mostly dissipated. As far back as 1964, Rudolf Flesch wrote in The ABC of Style,
It's a superstition that abbreviations shouldn't be used in serious writing and that it's good style to spell everything out. Nonsense: use abbreviations whenever they are customary and won't attract the attention of the reader.
The 1989 Webster's Dictionary of English Usage entry for "contractions" says,
Contractions became unfashionable in the 18th century and continued so until the early 20th century at least; in 1901 a correspondent of The Ladies' Home Journal was still wondering if can't, couldn't, and won't were permissible. Today many handbooks for writers recommend contractions to avoid sounding stilted.
Most recent editions of style guides for news and academic publishing allow or even encourage these forms, even in formal writing. These include Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style, Garner’s Modern American Usage, and the MLA Handbook [1]. The Chicago Manual of Style encourages the judicious use of contractions [2].
The AP Styleguide only urges only against "excessive" use of contractions. The main holdout seems to be the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed), which still says to avoid them.
Such forms are commonplace in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. A sample follows
The same is true for The Canadian Encyclopedia. [6] Britannica allows contractions, but it can hardly be seen as a serious encyclopedia any longer.
Other books that just came to hand (no cherry picking):
NO: The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women doesn't, nor does Encyclopedia of Linguistics (Routledge), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Psychology and Gender, Encyclopedia of Climate Change (2nd ed; Salem Press), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Child Development (2nd ed).
YES: The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies, The Encyclopedia of Neuropsychological Disorders (Springer), Encyclopedia of Tribology (Springer).
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language uses contracted auxiliary verbs throughout.
Some university writing centres still encourage students to avoid contractions, for example, Hull, [7] but others, such as University of Edinburgh [8] and Monash [9] have moved on.
Harvard seems neutral on the topic [10], [11].
The government of the UK allows them on their website [12]. The government of Canada (including the Supreme Court for its Cases in Brief) [13], though the Government of Australia continues to recommend avoiding them in formal contexts [14].
Overall, then there is a significant movement towards using contracted auxiliary verbs in formal writing, and Wikipedia should follow along. Brett ( talk) 18:11, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
I have recently noticed the input of @ Gawaon that possessives are not contractions. While this is true, as I have found, it could be confusing to other editors, including me before my research. As such, I propose that a new section be added to the page talking about possessives and how they are permitted, and have the contractions section link here. 2003 LN 6 16:15, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
[a] contraction is an abbreviation of one or more words that has some or all of the middle letters removed but retains the first and final letters (e.g. Mr and aren't). "Dave's", a possessive, is not a word that has some of all of the middle letters removed, so it isn't a contraction. I believe that's as clear as it needs to be. Largoplazo ( talk) 22:42, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
This may have been discussed before, but when putting the indefinite article before an initialism, should you take account of the sound of the letters or of the root text? I just edited an article to add "an SAATB choir", given the sound of ess. Or should I have written "a", given the sound of soprano? David Brooks ( talk) 16:56, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
Should this be added to exceptions? Does any one ever say the full name when using the word, let alone know the full initialism meaning? Augu Maugu ♨ 07:39, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Manual of Style/Abbreviations page. |
|
Archives:
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6Auto-archiving period: 90 days
![]() |
![]() | The Arbitration Committee has permitted Wikipedia administrators to impose discretionary sanctions on any editor editing this page or associated pages. Discretionary sanctions can be used against an editor who repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process. |
![]() |
Manual of Style ![]() ![]() | |||||||||
|
It's time to reconsider the general prohibition of contractions in articles.
Unless I've missed something, the most recent significant discussion about the topic was held in January and February of 2011.
I'm specifically addressing the use of contractions of auxiliary verbs, such as 'll and 're, along with their negative forms using the -n't negative suffix. The proposal is not related to other contractions such as ol' for old, 'em for them, ne'er for never, etc. Also, non-standard forms, such as ain't along with less common forms such as should've still require specific guidance. These, however, don't need to be dealt with under the topic of contractions generally.
The times have changed, and the sense that contractions are informal has mostly dissipated. As far back as 1964, Rudolf Flesch wrote in The ABC of Style,
It's a superstition that abbreviations shouldn't be used in serious writing and that it's good style to spell everything out. Nonsense: use abbreviations whenever they are customary and won't attract the attention of the reader.
The 1989 Webster's Dictionary of English Usage entry for "contractions" says,
Contractions became unfashionable in the 18th century and continued so until the early 20th century at least; in 1901 a correspondent of The Ladies' Home Journal was still wondering if can't, couldn't, and won't were permissible. Today many handbooks for writers recommend contractions to avoid sounding stilted.
Most recent editions of style guides for news and academic publishing allow or even encourage these forms, even in formal writing. These include Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style, Garner’s Modern American Usage, and the MLA Handbook [1]. The Chicago Manual of Style encourages the judicious use of contractions [2].
The AP Styleguide only urges only against "excessive" use of contractions. The main holdout seems to be the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed), which still says to avoid them.
Such forms are commonplace in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. A sample follows
The same is true for The Canadian Encyclopedia. [6] Britannica allows contractions, but it can hardly be seen as a serious encyclopedia any longer.
Other books that just came to hand (no cherry picking):
NO: The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women doesn't, nor does Encyclopedia of Linguistics (Routledge), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Psychology and Gender, Encyclopedia of Climate Change (2nd ed; Salem Press), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Child Development (2nd ed).
YES: The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies, The Encyclopedia of Neuropsychological Disorders (Springer), Encyclopedia of Tribology (Springer).
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language uses contracted auxiliary verbs throughout.
Some university writing centres still encourage students to avoid contractions, for example, Hull, [7] but others, such as University of Edinburgh [8] and Monash [9] have moved on.
Harvard seems neutral on the topic [10], [11].
The government of the UK allows them on their website [12]. The government of Canada (including the Supreme Court for its Cases in Brief) [13], though the Government of Australia continues to recommend avoiding them in formal contexts [14].
Overall, then there is a significant movement towards using contracted auxiliary verbs in formal writing, and Wikipedia should follow along. Brett ( talk) 18:11, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
I have recently noticed the input of @ Gawaon that possessives are not contractions. While this is true, as I have found, it could be confusing to other editors, including me before my research. As such, I propose that a new section be added to the page talking about possessives and how they are permitted, and have the contractions section link here. 2003 LN 6 16:15, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
[a] contraction is an abbreviation of one or more words that has some or all of the middle letters removed but retains the first and final letters (e.g. Mr and aren't). "Dave's", a possessive, is not a word that has some of all of the middle letters removed, so it isn't a contraction. I believe that's as clear as it needs to be. Largoplazo ( talk) 22:42, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
This may have been discussed before, but when putting the indefinite article before an initialism, should you take account of the sound of the letters or of the root text? I just edited an article to add "an SAATB choir", given the sound of ess. Or should I have written "a", given the sound of soprano? David Brooks ( talk) 16:56, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
Should this be added to exceptions? Does any one ever say the full name when using the word, let alone know the full initialism meaning? Augu Maugu ♨ 07:39, 3 July 2024 (UTC)