English Contractions Quiz

I think "alright" should be accepted for "all right".

sure it is

"Alright" technically is not a word.

TheBluerock and samiam1955 are both correct. Technically, there is no such word as "alright". However, people have spelled "all right" as "alright", and many people use "alright", even though it really is not a word. Sure, the dictionary may say "alright" is a word, but it also says "funner" is a word. I find that to be hilarious.

'Alright' is as much a word as is 'almost', 'altogether', 'always', 'albeit'...

It's a word. It even has meaning and usage distinct from "all right."

A'ight is alright, not all right. Also I put in shall not twice and it wasn't accepted. And for the record, most of these are not contractions, but rather slang.

"Alright" is a nonstandard word that is itself a contraction of all right. The Quizmaster has it correct.

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.

I thought Mo' meant moment as in.... I'll be there in a mo'

I thought it meant 'mother', as in mofo...

There's no such thing as improper or poor speech. The language evolves; to say some new words of phrases are poor is wrong.

Oh come on. If you accept "yes ma'am" and "what's up" you should accept "I'm going to". And donna, please, please, read up on the subject. Your attitude is outdated and dangerous.

Dangerous?

dangerous to his ego

Both of the ones I missed had God in the them. No wonder

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.

I've never heard the word "zounds" or the expression "God's wounds". :/

You and me both!

@kal413, same for me, hehehe

@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.

dr, jr, sgt, and mr are abbriviations not contractions aren't they?

I WILL NE'ER SAY NE'ER. Thank god he's candian. LOL

Cannot is one word. It is never written can not.

no

Learnt something new. Good bye actually means something.. Wow.

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.

Could is it not be acceptable for "Innit" since "is not it" is O.K.?

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.

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 . . .

Strewth! Or, god's truth, if you prefer... ;-)

Haha, never heard "strewth" until Monty Python. It's a fun and funny word.

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.

You got 'Zounds' and not 'Goodbye'........ that's quaint.

I would have also gotten gadzooks and ods bonkins.

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.

I don't want to be that guy but mo' is also a contraction of homosexual. The main use of mo' though is moment, not more, unless you listen to a lot of rap.

So "Good" in Goodbye means God. Does "Good" in "Good morning" also mean "God"? --- I am just glad I missed both God-related ones. Fare-thee-well!

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.

You're thinking of "Zoinks!" which of course means "God oinks".

God’s oinks, surely ;)

No English words have always been words but in common usage, yes, alright and all right currently mean different things.

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.

Where I live "is not it" is contracted to "id'nt".

I'll probably get yelled at, but I'm pretty sure some of these contractions are just ebonic words.

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.

So if it's not a contraction, why the apostrophe?

isn't 'innit' - is it not?

"Zounds"

could not guess anything for "Goodbye" and "Zounds." failed those.

Zeus' wounds should work for Zounds as that is where the phase originates from, and is where the Z at the front comes from

For dunno I kept putting I do not know and couldn't figure out why it was wrong

I do not know, haha.

made up "zounds" for this one? noice!

"Innit" is a contraction for "Isn't it" which is a contraction for "Is it not". The quiz says "Is not it", which is wrong.

may i point out that a contraction needs an apostrophe in it

Glad I'm not the only one who didnt get "goodbye" and "zounds" like ??????????

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?"

I think 'innit' means isn't it, many English speaking people say 'isn't it' and this becomes 'innit' in some regions. e.g. "Its a good movie innit?"

bad quiz and can't is spelled cannot not "can not"

Sorry, but where I live, Mo' is definitely Motherf***er.

Zounds! come on....what is that?

zounds? wtf?????

I do not know doesn't work as a possible answer.

zounds and goodbye don't belong in this quiz. Otherwise, pretty easy!

24/30 but i'm french

23/30 but I'm german

No, but this is a good quiz innit?

Yesn't

It's quite a dated phrase that's used quite a lot in Shakespeare, at least as "Zounds".

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.

or.. Great Odin's raven!

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

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.