Cutting It Short: Contractions
An apostrophe often indicates that at least one letter has been omitted from a word, and the word that's formed is called a contraction. For example, the contraction
she will |
she'll |
you have |
you've |
he is |
he's |
Sometimes authors will use apostrophes in contractions to help readers understand dialect. For instance, an author might write, “Alice is goin' swimmin' today.” Readers understand that the final —
