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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Can.....Can not.....Can't
Do.......Do not.......Don't
Has.....Has not......Hasn'T
Could...Could not...Couldn't
Will.....Will not.....Won't???
Anyone know why? Willn't or wiln't
is....is not....isn't...all that difficult to say.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Comes from contractions of woll not or wonnot, both old forms of will not. Per OED.
TEd
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Thanks TEd, I was waiting for someone to answer Zed on this one.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Woll
Interesting, thanks TEd
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dare ... dare not ... dasn't.
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stranger
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stranger
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We don't say dasn't in the UK, and only occasionally do we use daren't. I've always assumed that dasn't is a corruption of dares not, whether or not dares is the grammatically correct verb form.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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>dasn't
I always thought the contraction for dares not was dursn't. Thanks for correctifying me, kind sir.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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"There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I dasn't scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back, right between my shoulders." ~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 2.
"Politics. You dasn't scare anybody for fear they will squawk." Robert A. Heinlein, Methuselah's Children, p 269 .
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Now *there's a good source for proper English grammar!
Nex thang you'll be citing Riddley Walker.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I'm so confused. Here I foolishly thought that Mark Twain was being descriptive when the dolt should have known that usage in novels is prescriptive.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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It turns out that I wasn't wrong after all. "Dursn't" really is a contraction of "dares not". So now I's gots a choice, dasn't or dursn't, ain't that swell?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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If you dast to use either one!
TEd
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