This week I was doing one final reread of Alice in Wonderland (a 1962 paperback version) and was struck by some archaic spelling:
"I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone; "so I ca'n't take more."Elsewhere the same style was applied to wo'n't and sha'n't.
"You mean you ca'n't take less," said the Hatter: "it's very easy to take more than nothing."
Just out of curiosity I ran ca'n't through Google's Ngram viewer (result above), which shows that double-apostrophe'd contractions have not disappeared (though I can't tell whether the modern usages are simply new editions of older books).
A quick web search yielded these comments by Lewis Carroll in his Preface to Sylvie and Bruno Concluded:
Other critics have objected to certain innovations in spelling, such as “ca’n’t”, “wo’n’t”, “traveler”. In reply, I can only plead my firm conviction that the popular usage is wrong. As to “ca’n’t”, it will not be disputed that, in all other words ending in “n’t”, these letters are an abbreviation of “not”; and it is surely absurd to suppose that, in this solitary instance, “not” is represented by " ‘t”! In fact “can’t” is the proper abbreviation for “can it”, just as “is’t” is for “is it”. Again, in “wo’n’t”, the first apostrophe is needed, because the word “would” is here abridged into “wo”: but I hold it proper to spell “don’t” with only one apostrophe, because the word “do” is here complete.Wordsmiths, grammar Nazis, copyeditors - any thoughts?
Wouldn't've thought of those.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_double_contractions
DeleteI have read a few "popular novels" (American, not British) from the period 1900-1920 in which "doesn't," "aren't," etc. are printed as two words: "does n't," "are n't." However "can't" is left as is. I wonder if this was a brief fad...I haven't (or rather, have n't) found the construct in books from the 1920s and later.
ReplyDeleteI think shouldn't've, wouldn't've, and couldn't've are all fairly useful. As for traveler, the other one that is a constant plague is canceled (vs. cancelled). Both look wrong to me when written out.
ReplyDeleteThere's also a similarity in Carroll's argument to the french accent circonflex that "replaces" a consonant in english with an accent (usually an "s"). For example, hôpital for hospital.
Let me step to the fo'c's'le and have a look ...
ReplyDeleteLurker111
At work I deal with "enrolment" forms in order to have "enrolled" students. No idea why the first has only one l.
ReplyDeleteI believe "enrolment" is British English (perhaps that's where your forms were printed?); in the U.S. both words would conventionally have double Ls.
DeleteI'm in Australia, so let's just say our systems are confused!
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