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This came to my attention again recently, so I wanted to throw the question out there.
There seems to be a trope in fantasy/paranormal romance that ancient beings (such as vampires) speak in "formal English". And by formally, this seems to mean that they don't use contractions. Ever.
Why?
The reason I ask is that these ancient beings are also usually pretty darn intelligent and you'd think they'd figure out the whole contractions-in-English thing, especially since they can often speak a bunch of languages fluently.
Human languages, in general, are prone to contractions and shortenings, etc.
(Did you see what I did there?)
Also, when did "not using contractions" become functionally equivalent to "speaking formally"? There are many other indications of formality other than lack of contractions. Seems to me word choice and sentence structure might be more indicative than lack of contractions.
So, what's so special about contractions in English? Why can't ancient beings (and futuristic androids) figure them out? And why are lack of contractions a code for "formal English" anyway?
(And aren't ancient beings capable of code-switching anyway?)
Anyone else bothered by this? Could be that I'm just...weird.
There seems to be a trope in fantasy/paranormal romance that ancient beings (such as vampires) speak in "formal English". And by formally, this seems to mean that they don't use contractions. Ever.
Why?
The reason I ask is that these ancient beings are also usually pretty darn intelligent and you'd think they'd figure out the whole contractions-in-English thing, especially since they can often speak a bunch of languages fluently.
Human languages, in general, are prone to contractions and shortenings, etc.
(Did you see what I did there?)
Also, when did "not using contractions" become functionally equivalent to "speaking formally"? There are many other indications of formality other than lack of contractions. Seems to me word choice and sentence structure might be more indicative than lack of contractions.
So, what's so special about contractions in English? Why can't ancient beings (and futuristic androids) figure them out? And why are lack of contractions a code for "formal English" anyway?
(And aren't ancient beings capable of code-switching anyway?)
Anyone else bothered by this? Could be that I'm just...weird.