Could’ve, Would’ve, Should’ve

Thoughts on contractions in your writing

Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash

Or is it coulda, woulda, shoulda?

Let’s talk about joining and abbreviating words in writing

I often don’t use contractions when I’m feeling emotional about something, or trying to drive some point. I do this unconsciously, and often won’t realize it until a re-write.

At which point it’s just annoying. It is.

A quick reminder of how contractions work before moving on to how we might further use them.

We create contractions by conjoining pronouns or question words — he, she, it, who, what, where, when, how…

Paired with auxiliary verbs, forms of “have” and “to be.” So “am/are/is” and others.

These words are paired, with apostrophes replacing missing letters.

I am becomes I’m, where is becomes where’s, they are becomes they’re…

At times it’s not the first letter of the second word. Or not only the first letter.

So do not becomes don’t and — as in the title here — should have becomes should’ve

Note: at times there may be more than one way to understand the contraction.

I had = I’d