These contractions break the rules
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Here are three strange contractions in English. Hi everyone, I'm Jeff and this is Plain English where you can upgrade your English skills with stories about current events and trending topics. Most Plain English episodes are not really about English but about other things going on in the world.

But this month, we're doing three special episodes about words in English. We did one on Latin words. That was number 747. We did one on French words. That was 750. And then today, number 753 is about strange contractions in English.

You probably know contractions are two words combined into one. Like, don't is short for do not. But there are some contractions that do not follow that rule. And I'll share three of them with you today.

Every episode comes with a transcript so you can read the words as you listen. And the transcript has a great feature. There are translations built right into the transcript so you don't have to pause the audio to look up a word. It

It's really cool, and there are translations into nine languages. So if you haven't seen that, try it out today at plainenglish.com slash 753. That's where you'll also find a quiz, skills exercise, and a discussion area. plainenglish.com slash 753.

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A contraction is a combination of two words in English, separated with an apostrophe. Your is short for you are. Haven't is short for have not. But there are a few contractions in English that are not combinations of two words. The ones we'll talk about today are ma'am,

o'clock, and ain't. Let's start with ma'am. Ma'am is spelled M-A apostrophe A-M. Unlike other contractions, ma'am doesn't connect or combine two words. It only shortens one word. It's short for madame, which comes from French.

Ma'am is a formal way to address a woman. It's the female equivalent of the word sir. This can often be considered polite and respectful, but it always implies an emotional distance between two people. A police officer might say, Step out of the car, please, ma'am.

A customer service agent might say, can I help you, ma'am? But I would caution you against using ma'am unless you're sure it's appropriate. Some people might think that you're calling them old if you use that term, and you never use ma'am with someone you already know.

But if you see a woman drop a pair of gloves on the street, you might pick them up and say, ma'am, are these your gloves? Next is one of the funniest words in English. I dare you to find me a funnier word. The word is o'clock. It's o', apostrophe, and the word clock.

O'clock. It's six o'clock, means six hours after midnight. It's nine o'clock, means it's three hours before noon, etc. O'clock is funny for a few reasons. First, it's not a contraction of words we would use today, but it is a contraction.

The origin of o'clock goes back to the early days of mechanical timekeeping. Before mechanical clocks, people kept time with sundials, hourglasses, and church bells, all of which were imprecise.

So when people first started referring to the time kept by mechanical clocks, they needed a way to specify that when they said five, they meant five as told by a mechanical clock. So in the 14th and 15th centuries, people in English began to say five of the clock.

By the 1500s, it was shortened to o'clock in informal speech. By about the 1600s, o'clock was the standard way to describe the time, and we still use it today. Most languages simply say hour. Translated literally, it is one hour, or they are two hours. Or simply, it is two, or it is one.

Only English, Welsh, and Gaelic use a term like o'clock in timekeeping. Finally, ain't. Ain't is a tricky word. It's spelled A-I-N apostrophe T. Ain't. In school, kids learn that ain't isn't correct and shouldn't be used.

It's not a swear word. It's not profanity. It's in the dictionary, and some adults use it. And yet, we learned that we shouldn't use it. What's the story? In conversation, ain't is a way of making a sentence negative. He ain't coming back home means he is not coming back home.

She ain't from around here means she is not from around here. Almost every native English speaker will understand what ain't means, but this is a very unusual word. It's one of the few words that is common in daily speech and yet is frequently criticized by authority figures like teachers and grammar experts.

Most authority figures in language say you shouldn't use the word ain't. Dictionaries call it non-standard. Teachers tell you not to use it.

You won't see it in formal writing, and it rarely appears in publications like newspapers, nonfiction books, or journal articles unless the subject is dialects or language. There is a stigma to the word ain't. Many people say it's wrong or incorrect to use.

Some people believe that using ain't is a marker of low education. In my opinion, this is a bit harsh. I personally never use it, but some people do use the word ain't in casual conversation and you often hear it in creative work like song lyrics, movies, and works of fiction.

And there are some dialects that use ain't without any stigma at all. You can use ain't for effect. People sometimes purposely use ain't just to grab attention. That ain't bad is a common way of saying that's not bad, even among people who know and respect the rules of grammar.

Ain't is even part of a common English saying. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. So ain't is not all bad. Still, my advice to you is that you should not use ain't unless you really know what you're doing. Standard English is hard enough without having to learn how to use the non-standard words.

I'll never forget one day, I was probably nine or ten years old. Someone in my classroom had found the word ain't in the dictionary. There was chaos in the classroom because our teachers, our parents, every adult in our lives had told us that ain't is not a word and that we should never use it. It should never, ever, ever cross our lips.

And then one kid found ain't in the dictionary. Here was proof that all the grown-ups in our lives had been lying to us the whole time. And our teacher was forced to admit that ain't is a word. She was laughing. This probably happened to her every year. Yes, ain't is in the dictionary, she told us. But that doesn't mean you should use it.

That's all for us here at Plain English for today, Thursday, February 27th, 2025. I think I've got a theme in mind for the month of March. I'm not 100% sure though. Let's see where we go with that. Remember the full transcript plus activities and the fast audio are available at PlainEnglish.

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