In common usage alright and all right actually mean two different things. Though some particularly snooty prescriptive grammarians reject the change, as they do all changes, as history has borne out those types always ultimately lose the argument. The contraction "Aiight" can mean both "all right" and "alright."
Bobcat: you're every bit as right as those who think that awesome means awful and awful means awesome, and who spell pathetic as pathetick, or who still converse in Old English.
But poor language remains just that and makes its users sound ignorant. If text speak becomes acceptable as written English I think that I shall give up and hie me to a nunnery!
I heard Goodbye meaning God Be With You before yet I had to cheat to get that one right and for Zounds I had no idea that it meant gods wounds(also cheating on Zounds).
And now I see why the average scores are always so high. On some quizzes, I feel it is impossible for the average score to be so high, and I had suspected cheating for a while.
Cheating is not necessarily rampant. I – and I expect many others – use these quizzes to learn. So when I get some answers wrong, I read up on them and am thereby edified. When I take the quiz again later (which I don't do right away, but weeks or months later), I have retained the new info and get those answers right. If more people are doing that, then that's pushing up the average.
no it isnt samiamco, cause only the first time you take quiz counts. And nothing wrong with what you do. But looking up the answers WHILE you are doing the quiz is another matter.
Grey area is, on a non language quiz, if someone knows the answer, but do not know the spelling in english. I am not sure how to judge that one.
@frozenELEMENT: Cannot and Can not have two different meanings, albeit they are very similar in spelling. Subtle differences yes, but "Can not" is the correct one :P
Missed Goodbye and Zounds - never heard of the contractions of either of them.
@imryan94: Can you tell us what the difference is, because I can't think how their meanings are different at all. As a kid I was always taught that "can not" is the incorrect spelling.
Could not think of how to break down Goodbye, although it makes sense now, zounds however, I have never heard in my life!! Will accept knowing the rest as now I know...!
Goodbye I would have thought was derived from "farewell" or "farethewell on your journey" hence "bye and bye". Maybe the definitions depend on which history book or bible a person reads.
I agree. That's the only one I didn't get. I tried "is it not" and couldn't think of anything else. You would never say: is not it a good book. You'd say: is it not a good book.
I actually could totally imagine saying (and it *is* grammatically correct), "Is not it a good book?" Speaking of totally, I am SO relieved to not've found "totes" on this quiz ;-)
zounds is dead old-fashioned - probably floating all over the place in Shakespeare. "Gor blimey " is a good one too. Means "May God blind me". As a kid I was always discouraged from saying it because of what it really meant.
Yes, well, I'm sure you all wanted to know that . . . . not . . .
great quiz. Much more interesting than the name implies. I got everything, including god's wounds, except for "goodbye," even though I figured it was something along those lines.
Today I learned that contraction = abbreviation. I suppose Dr has been contracted down from it's full word, but i don't think that is the fundamental definition of contraction. I always thought you needed an apostrophe to replace a letter.
Zounds sounds like something Velma or Shaggy would say. I'm not going to take sides but in English class we've always been taught that "All right" means all correct, or all set, or something, while "Alright" means okay or some form of agreement. As far as I've learned, they've always both been words. And I just finished up English 11R I literally took the exam today.
I like this quiz. But the comment forum is annoying. (Who cares if they're abbreviations or contractions? They're all deleting letters in the written form.) And I do wish that "Mrs" had been included in the quiz, if only to drive home the point that it doesn't come from "Mister's" and was never in any way possessive. It's "Mistress" (which came to be pronounced "missus"), which was a general form of address for women of authority and later came to be associated only with married women.
What???? I have never ever heard of ( anybody thinking) mrs came from mister's and supposedly being possessive, that's crazy ( more so if it's true if it true)
Y'all isn't a contraction. It is the English language's only distinct word to represent the pronoun of the 2nd Person Plural. The American South has the only form of English blessed with this construction, (in common with many other languages). The rest of us have to say "You" to mean both singular and plural and hope the context makes our meaning clear.
regardless of the rest of your comment y'all is definitely a contraction. From you all (which can still be used to make a distinction between singular and plural)
Must say I'm totally stunned to learn zounds was originally god's wounds, especially since wounds and zounds don't rhyme, but I guess it's an example of both spelling *and* pronunciation changing over time. As several others ahead of me have pointed out, languages are dynamic and constantly changing. Except, obviously, for dead languages, such as Latin.
There are distinct differences in speech contractions and written contractions (to use the wording given). Mr is only used when written, you still pronounce 'Mister', likewise Dr, Jr, Sgt.
Innit is actually Is it not because it implies a question to confirm something, not prove it wrong. Such as: "This is a great story, innit?", which means "This is a great story, is it not?" and not "This is a great story, is not it?"
there's so much wrong with this quiz i don't even know where to begin... first of all, a contraction indicates legit English, as opposed to slang, which half this quiz consists of. second, "Jr., Mr., Dr., and Sgt., 'til, ma'am, 'em, mo', n'er, and o'er" are NOT contractions. they're abbreviations. a contraction combines two words to make one. and finally, can't is short for "cannot." it's one word, not two.
When people used to swear it was almost always invoking God or Satan or Hell or some other mythology in some way. "By God's wounds!" is to say that you are swearing by the stigmata of Jesus, as if you've seen something that is similarly impressive or surprising as proof of the resurrection. Or if you needed something to swear an oath by, upon which your veracity and sincerity could not be in doubt, this would also be a worthy subject. Like swearing on your mother's grave.
Think about modern expressions like "Gosh dang it," or "damn it to Hell," or "I swear to God," or "God almighty!"... things haven't really changed that much. It's almost all stuff like that or else descriptions of private parts and sex acts.
Many of these are not contractions at all- they are abbreviations which are not the same thing. Contractions occur ONLY when two words become one by using an apostrophe. (Did not read all comments so perhaps this fact was already mentioned.)
I agree jr mr dr sgt are all abbreviations but let us you all shall not madam all right could have I would have do not can not we are what is up gods wounds god be with ye going to do not know want to be more is not it good day yes madam them I am going to come on until over never are contractions
I'm very happy to see the word zounds in this quiz. I don't remember where I learned that it's a contraction of "God's wounds," but when I did, I decided it was my favorite thing. Just so graphic, right? So thank you for giving me the opportunity to put that prettymuch useless piece of trivia to use!
Fun quiz! Judging by the percentages, most people appear to have found "zounds" and "Goodbye" pretty obscure. Didn't seem to fit with the relative ease of the rest.
I did god by you(ye) and variations, I knew it was something like that.
I think my thinking might have been influenced by dutch. Cause "bij jou" is literally "by you", but means with you (or at your place in some other cases) with you would be "met jou".
We still have on our coins god zij met jou, which means god be(eth) with you. I think that was somewhere in the back of my mind.
Here's some clarification for y'all: INNIT = 'is not it' because it's a contracted contraction: IS NOT IT -> ISN'T IT -> INNIT. ........... CAN'T = CANNOT and it's just a mistake in the quiz that the OP or Quizmaster is too stubborn to correct. As a small piece of extra evidence, in Cambridge English exams some questions have a strict word limit for the answer, and contractions always count as 2 words EXCEPT can't, because it is a contraction of a single word.
And for the record, most of these are not contractions, but rather slang.
And donna, please, please, read up on the subject. Your attitude is outdated and dangerous.
Grey area is, on a non language quiz, if someone knows the answer, but do not know the spelling in english. I am not sure how to judge that one.
Missed Goodbye and Zounds - never heard of the contractions of either of them.
I have alway thought of innit being short for 'Is it not?' after all it's generally used as a question, innit?
Yes, well, I'm sure you all wanted to know that . . . . not . . .
The main use of mo' though is moment, not more, unless you listen to a lot of rap.
If you cannot do something, you are unable to do it.
If you can not do something, it says you have a choice of whether or not you can do it.
Think about modern expressions like "Gosh dang it," or "damn it to Hell," or "I swear to God," or "God almighty!"... things haven't really changed that much. It's almost all stuff like that or else descriptions of private parts and sex acts.
Has anybody ever said that?
I think my thinking might have been influenced by dutch. Cause "bij jou" is literally "by you", but means with you (or at your place in some other cases) with you would be "met jou".
We still have on our coins god zij met jou, which means god be(eth) with you. I think that was somewhere in the back of my mind.
Should-not-have-all for example
"You shouldn't've'll done this for me!"