Thursday, September 27, 2018

grammaticality - Is it Standard American English to ever contract "did" as "-'d"?

Assuming that it is Standard American English to contract would as -'d, is it standard to contract did as -'d? For example:






  • I would really like to have a glass of single malt scotch right now.
    → I'd really like to have a glass of single malt scotch right now.


  • What did you do last night?
    → What'd you do last night?





My hypothesis is that the did → -'d contraction is perfectly acceptable when it follows a question word, otherwise it sounds awkward, or even bad. On the flip side, the would → -'d contraction is actually unacceptable when it follows a question word. In other words, the two are in complementary distribution, at least for the most part.



Note: my question was originally about the spoken Standard American English, but if there is any difference in acceptability between the spoken and written standard, I would be grateful to learn about it.

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