Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
That's largely, though, to make the words fit the metre of the blank verse that most of Shakespeare's plays are written in. (eg "e'er" is one syllable compared to two syllables for "ever"). If you look at examples of prose in Shakespeare, as opposed to poetry, contractions are much less common.
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OK, Dickens - your favourite
- looking at David Copperfield, we have "don't" "couldn't" "there's" "what's" "it's" &c &c &c
I'm still not convinced that there is good evidence that the implicit assertion is true.