Contractions -- Don't Worry'bout't

So, in my last post I put to use one of the oldest conventions in the English language - the contraction. This is that beautiful little rule that allows us - and by "us" I mean mostly "me", because you can do what you want - to turn longer phrases and words into smaller language bits that are easier to say and type (you don't even have to use the 'Shift' key to hit the apostrophe!).

So "wen't" isn't a real contraction you say? I dare say it is. "Wen't", as almost all of us know, is a contraction of the phrase "were on our way to".

Yes, it is the second "e" in "were" that's included in the contraction. That's just the way it is.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about contractions. "But Gable, don't you have more important things to be thinking about, like gastric lymphomas, arterial shunting, and how to differentiate appenditis from acute colitis?"

As we all know, marriage is a compromise...maybe naming conventions after a marriage should follow the law of the contraction. Rather than the wife taking the husbands last name, or sticking with her maiden name, or doing the ridiculous two-names-connected-by-a-hyphen thing (hyphens are just obnoxious - to say and to type), perhaps when two people get married they should form a new last name as a contraction of their own last names.

For example, my last name is Moffitt, and my wife's given last name is Bullock, so we've got two options. Since I don't want to have the negative, violent associations that go along with "Bullitt", I think we'll go with the much more innocuous "Moffock". Definitely much better.