Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson for July 18, 2015

Contractions are the devil. Ask any woman in labor.

Never use apostrophe’s to make plural’s of word’s.

hmmm, interesting little sprout

My pet peeve is people who dont understand the proper use of apostrophe’s.

Since grammar is the topic, why use “how come” when you mean “why”? Also, I hope WaitingMan’s use of <’s> to pluralize “apostrophe” is intended to be ironic.

@WaitingMan: Can I quote you on that?

It is not just apostrophes, unicorns would never think of saying things like “wanna” and “gotta”

My teacher told me: “Don’t use contractions.”

Oh boy.

I like having a main character who uses no contractions, too.

I love how Marigold looks in panel 3 so very very much.

With all respect for learning, schooling, proper grammar, et cetera, I’m going to submit what I know will be considered blasphemy or something of that sort.

I say that the word “ain’t,” which we’ve been told since early elementary school is wrong, improper, and everything else bad, is a natural contraction for “am not.” Think about it: you don’t say “I are not ready,” you say “I am not ready.” I know that you can (and are “supposed” to) say “I’m not,” but I submit that “I ain’t” is a logical and, by its use, a natural contraction of “I am not.” And I stand by this, so go ahead and draw and quarter me. I ain’t going to back down.

What the grammar nazis typically overlook is that language is not static; it is continually evolving, always has and always will. Therefore, what they see as “degradation” I see as simply “change into something new.” And change isn’t necessarily a bad thing, y’know.

Plus, from a writing perspective, using these little “quibbles” in language that cause such issue helps to give a character, well, character. Like how Marigold here does not use contractions when what we’re used to are frequent use of contractions. That’s part of her character. You get the idea.

A couple of months ago Marigold DID use a contraction and I pointed it out. She said “mustn’t”.

Hmpf! I would’ve guessed that she was a fan of Data from Star Trek: TNG fame. :P