I find I’m not using contractions as much anymore. I just wrote “he had been ready” when I’m sure I would ordinarily have written “he’d been.” “Of course, now that my mind is on it I’m using contractions in this post, so this is not a good test case.”
I blame the iPhone. It is much faster and easier when typing a text message or an email to write out the full words rather than go into the special characters menu for an apostrophe. “Just read that over and saw I’d written “it is” instead of “it’s.”” Also, the iPhone autocorrect feature has some quirks that sometimes mistake one contraction for another.
Now that I’m conscious of it I’m re-reading some things I’ve written recently. The lack of contractions seems to make my writing seem more formal, more stilted and, in a way, dumber.
Has mobile keyboarding changed the way you write?
photo by someToast