When forming a contraction between does and not what is the correct way to write it?

Jeanette has asked about the difference between don't and doesn't. These are negative forms of one of the most important verbs in English.

My colleague Kory Stamper, an editor of the Learner's Dictionary, responds:

Both don't and doesn't are contractions. Don't is a contraction of do not, while doesn't is a contraction of does not, and they both act as auxiliary verbs.

In English, don't is used when speaking in the first and second person plural and singular and the third person plural ("I," "you," "we," and "they"). It can be used to make a negative statement:

         I don't like seafood.

         You want to buy one, don't you?

Doesn't, on the other hand, is used when speaking in the third person singular only ("he," "she," and "it"). Like don't, doesn't is used to make negative statements:

         He doesn't like me.

         Doesn't she like the play?

The big difference in use between don't and doesn't is that don't is also used to give commands (commands in English are always given in the second person singular or plural):

         Don't touch the stove!

Doesn't cannot be used in giving commands.

Don't is occasionally used in American English speech and in historical writing as a contraction of does not (as in, "He don't know where he is going."), but this use is now considered improper and should be avoided. Remember that in modern speech and writing, don't cannot be used in the third person singular.

A contraction is a word made by shortening and combining two words. Words like can't (can + not), don't (do + not), and I've (I + have) are all contractions.

People use contractions in both speaking and writing. They're so common that movies and books often try to make characters seem old-fashioned or strange by having them never use contractions. This is a little silly because English speakers have been using contractions for centuries—although not always the same ones we use today.

Writing contractions

All contractions include a punctuation mark that looks like this:

This is an apostrophe. Knowing where to put the apostrophe can seem tricky, but there's a pretty simple rule that works with every contraction. Remember how we said contractions are made of two words that have been shortened? The apostrophe replaces any letters that are in the original words, but that aren't in the contraction.

For instance, the contraction couldn't means could not. As you can see, the o in not isn't in the word couldn't. The apostrophe goes in its place, right between the n and t.

Let's look at another example. You'll means you will. This contraction is missing two letters from the word will: w and i. The apostrophe goes where these missing letters belong: between the u and the first l.

In some parts of the United States, you can address a group of people by using a special contraction for you + all. It's written below—without the apostrophe. Click the spot where the apostrophe should be.

Nope!

Putting the apostrophe here just doesn't work. The apostrophe always takes the place of missing letters in a contraction. There aren't any missing letters in the word all.

Not quite!

Remember, this contraction means you + all, or youall. Which letters are missing? The apostrophe should go in the space where the missing letters belong.

That's right!

Y'all is a contraction of you all. The missing letters are ou, so the apostrophe goes in their place — right after the y.

Common contractions

In English, there are a fairly small number of contractions, and they're all made out of common words. Here are some of the contractions you'll see the most:

You might have noticed that the word won't is a little different from the other contractions. It means will not, even though the word will isn't there. This is because won't is based on a much older form of the word will. Even though the word changed, the contraction stayed the same!

Writing with contractions

If anyone tells you that you should never use contractions in writing, they're wrong. It's perfectly OK to use contractions in most writing, including newspapers, fiction, and instructions. In fact, using contractions can make your writing simpler and easier to read.

However, if you're writing an academic paper or anything else that's formal, you may want to avoid contractions. If you're writing for school, it might be a good idea to ask your teacher if contractions are OK.

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The apostrophe is used in writing contractions — that is, shortened forms of words from which one or more letters have been omitted. In standard English, this generally happens only with a small number of conventional items, mostly involving verbs. Here are some of the commonest examples, with their uncontracted equivalents:

Note in each case that the apostrophe appears precisely in the position of the omitted letters: we write can't, not *ca'nt, and aren't, not *are'nt. Note also that the irregular contraction won't takes its apostrophe between the n and the t, just like all other contractions involving not. And note also that she'd've has two apostrophes, because material has been omitted from two positions.

It is not wrong to use such contractions in formal writing, but you should use them sparingly, since they tend to make your writing appear less than fully formal. Since I'm trying to make this document seem chatty rather than intimidating, I've been using a few contractions here and there, though not as many as I might have used. But I advise you not to use the more colloquial contractions like she'd've in your formal writing: these things, while perfectly normal in speech, are a little too informal for careful writing.

Such contractions represent the most useful job the apostrophe does for us, since, without it, we would have no way of expressing in writing the difference between she'll and shell, he'll and hell, can't and cant, I'll and ill, we're and were, she'd and shed, we'll and well, and perhaps a few others.

A few words which were contractions long ago are still conventionally written with apostrophes, even though the longer forms have more or less dropped out of use. There are so few of these that you can easily learn them all. Here are the commonest ones, with their original longer forms:

Some generations ago there were rather more contractions in regular use in English; these other contractions are now archaic, and you wouldn't normally use any of them except in direct quotations from older written work. Here are a few of them, with their longer forms:

There are other contractions which are often heard in speech. Here are a few:

It is, of course, never appropriate to use such colloquial forms in formal writing, except when you are explicitly writing about colloquial English. If you do have occasion to cite or use these things, you should use apostrophes in the normal way to mark the elided material.

Contractions must be carefully distinguished from clipped forms. A clipped form is a full word which happens to be derived by chopping a piece off a longer word, usually one with the same meaning. Clipped forms are very common in English; here are a few, with their related longer forms:

Such clipped forms are not regarded as contractions, and they should not be written with apostrophes. Writing things like hippo', bra', 'cello and 'phone will, not to mince words, make you look like an affected old fuddy duddy who doesn't quite approve of anything that's happened since 1912. Of course, some of these clipped forms are still rather colloquial, and in formal writing you would normally prefer to write detective and alligator, rather than tec and gator. Others, however, are perfectly normal in formal writing: even the most dignified music critic would call Ofra Harnoy's instrument a cello; he would no more use violoncello than he would apply the word omnibus to a London double-decker.

Important note: Contractions must also be carefully distinguished from abbreviations. Abbreviations are things like Mr for Mister, lb. for pound(s), bc for before Christ and e.g. for for example.

Finally, there are a few circumstances in which apostrophes are used to represent the omission of some material in cases which are not exactly contractions. First, certain surnames of non-English origin are written with apostrophes: O'Leary (Irish), d'Abbadie (French), D'Angelo (Italian), M'Tavish (Scots Gaelic). These are not really contractions because there is no alternative way of writing them.

Second, apostrophes are sometimes used in representing words in non standard forms of English: thus the Scots poet Robert Burns writes gi' for give and a' for all. You are hardly likely to need this device except when you are quoting from such work.

Third, a year is occasionally written in an abbreviated form with an apostrophe: Pío Baroja was a distinctive member of the generation of '98. This is only normal in certain set expressions; in my example, the phrase generation of '98 is an accepted label for a certain group of Spanish writers, and it would not be normal to write *generation of 1898. Except for such conventional phrases, however, you should always write out years in full when you are writing formally: do not write something like *the '39–'45 war, but write instead the 1939–1945 war.

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