Ain't It Good To Know Trivia Quiz

Answer: they've

In this case, the apostrophe takes the place of two letters, the H and the A in "have". This allows one word to be created - they've. This word is usually used if the "have" part is a word that is used with another verb, or action word and does not change the meaning of the sentence if it is not there.

For example, it would be used in the sentence "they've just arrived" because the the word "have" is not needed for meaning. The sentence "they just arrived" means the same thing. But, if the "have" bit of the word is needed in order to be correct, a contraction is not usually made. An example of this type of sentence is "they have three pets". If the word "have" is not used in that one, the sentence "they three pets" would not make sense.

Answer: won't

This is a fairly old word. The first time that "won't" was used was almost five hundred years ago, in the middle of the 1500s! The word is usually negative and typically means "will not", as in "my daughter won't eat peas". It can also be used in a positive way. An example of this is "won't you please come in?", which means "will you please come in?"

Answer: how'd

This contraction has the apostrophe taking the place of multiple letters. The word "how'd" is usually used in questions. It actually has two meanings. As given here, it can mean "how would". An example of this is "how'd you like to walk on the beach?". It can also mean "how did". An example of this is "how'd the team do today?"

Answer: I'll

I'll is a contraction of both "I will" (as given here) and "I shall". Both words are similar in meaning, but have a different history. Originally, "I shall" meant that a person would do something at some point in the future. On the other hand, "I will" started out to mean that a person would do something right away. Over the years, the meaning of "I shall" has not changed, but "I will" has come to mean either something that will happen now or in the future.

The apostrophe takes the place of two or three letters in this example. An example of using this contraction is in the sentence, "I'll be home after basketball practice".

Answer: mustn't've

This is a very interesting contraction because it combines three words and has two apostrophes. This means that it is a double contraction. The first is "mustn't", short for "must not". Then, the "have" is added to the end for "mustn't've", or "must not have".

A sentence with this contraction might be "my mom mustn't've known about my boyfriend's nut allergy because she baked us a pecan pie". It is important to remember that this contraction is only used when the "have" is part of a verb, or action word, that is more important in the the sentence.

In this case, the more important verb is "baked", or "must not have baked".

Answer: these're

"These're" is a contraction that is common in North American speech, but it is not often seen in written language. It is a combination of "these" and "are", with the apostrophe taking the place of only one letter in this example. An example of a sentence with this word in it might be "these're daisies, and these're roses".

A related contraction is "those're", another contraction that allows a comparison. For example, "those're white eggs, but those're brown eggs". Or, using both at the same time, "these're Fords and those're Chevrolets".

Answer: 'tween

This is an interesting contraction because the apostrophe is at the beginning of the word. It takes the place of two letters, so "between" becomes "'tween" when contracted. In recent years, the word "tween" has been used to describe youngsters between the ages of about eight and twelve years. They are called "tweens" because their ages put them between little children and teenagers.

Answer: yes'm

In this case, the contraction takes the place of four letters, so "yes madam" becomes "yes'm". It can also be a contraction of a contraction. In some parts of the world, a sign of respect of a woman is to refer to her as "ma'am". In that case, the word "madam" is contracted by having the apostrophe take the place of the "D". So, if"yes'm" is used in a part of the world that used "ma'am", it can almost be seen as shortening an already shortened word.

Answer: you're

In this case, "you are" is shortened to "you're" by having the apostrophe take the place of the "A". This is one of those English words that gets confused with another because it is a homophone, or one that sounds the same. In this case, the similar word is "your". If you are ever wondering which one to use, there are a couple of rules. "Your" is usually followed by a noun (a word that represents a person, a place, or a thing).

The word "your" is not usually able to be expanded into the two words in the contraction, so a good way to double check is simply saying "you are" in the sentence to check for correctness.

For example, the sentence "your coat is beautiful" is correct. The word "your" is followed by the noun "coat". It would also be incorrect to say "you are coat is beautiful".

Answer: ain't

This contraction is often considered incorrect in many places around the world. However, the word "ain't" is an interesting one because it is not really clear that it is a contraction of "is not". The "A" at the beginning is a bit tricky. That may be because when it was first used in the mid-1700s, "ain't" meant "are not".

It has since been used to mean "am not", "is not", "are not", "has not", "have not", and "did not". Some examples include "Jimmy ain't coming for lunch" (is not); "I ain't going away" (am not); "they ain't been swimming yet" (have not); "I ain't hungry" (am not); "they ain't ready yet" (are not); and "dad ain't shopped yet" (has not).

It should be noted that each of these uses has its own contraction that is used in parts of the world where "ain't" is considered incorrect. So, the sentences could also be "Jimmy isn't coming for lunch", "I'm not going away", "they haven't been swimming yet", "I'm not hungry", "they aren't ready yet", and "dad hasn't shopped yet".