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.
Comes from contractions of woll not or wonnot, both old forms of will not. Per OED.
Thanks TEd, I was waiting for someone to answer Zed on this one.
Woll
Interesting, thanks TEd
Dare ... dare not ... dasn't.
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.
>dasn't
I always thought the contraction for dares not was dursn't. Thanks for correctifying me, kind sir.
"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 .
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Now *there's a good source for proper English grammar!
Nex thang you'll be citing Riddley Walker.
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.
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?
If you dast to use either one!
