A little contraction action

Ain't ain't a word.

Can't never could do nothin'.

Those are two things I remember hearing frequently growing up. They are really not important here, but they kept popping into my thoughts over the last few days due to an English challenge. I suppose it was an assignment, but it was so hard I have decided it is more of a challenge than just an assignment.

*I feel it is necessary to say right here that it is taking all I have in me not to put some words in quotation marks for emphasis. ;)*

Do not use slang for 48 hours or do not use contractions for 48 hours.

I thought I was being so smart. I chose not to use contractions. Me being the me that I am, meaning I am what you might call a virtual social butterfly, tweeted this assignment as I walked out of the Gillioz. I neglected to make it clear I was to choose one or the other and Austin from Ireland quickly replied "dead on I'm in fo dat" and "and mos def no contractions sho nuff". Another person asked me if "Hmmmm" was Internet/text slang while yet another person replied "is not the term 'slang' in and of itself slang?" Good question. Obviously I had to tweet a correction to clarify I was to choose one.

"I wasn't clear. Either no contractions or no slang. I choose no contractions."

Yes. Fail. Austin, being the lovely chum he is, quickly came back at me.

"you just failed"

An accidental tweet of "gotcha" won me a response of "you suck at this" from Austin even though I was not even talking to him at the time. One of the reasons I adore Twitter.

I failed at this. I really thought it would be easier than not to use contractions than slang. I may have been wrong. It is hard enough to not use contractions in print, but twenty times as hard in speaking. Oh my goodness. In typing/texting, I felt like a robot. I am not at all a formal person and I like to talk fast. I don't mean I necessarily have a fast cadence to my speech, but that I like to keep it moving. Do you have any idea how many words are contractions? A lot. More than you realize.

So give it a try. Good luck. And don't invite Austin to monitor you. You will want to buy a plane ticket to Ireland to let him know just how much you appreciate his inner grammar hound. ;)