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Daily Affirmation 11-4-11

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why do we make the words "Will Not" into the contraction "Won't"?

"And what about wont:

will + not (take away ill) ---> wnot rather than wont

Whats going on here? The fact is that the contraction wont was created when an older form of will not was in use. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, wont was formed from woll not, an earlier form of will not. Knowing this, we can now set up our diagram of the formation of the contraction like this:

woll + not (take away ll; take away o) ---> wont

And we can see that it is formed identically to shant. So did wont at one time have a double apostrophe as well? Yes: at one time, the correct spelling (or a correct spelling) was wont.

Now that you know the history, it should be easier to connect wont with will not."

http://www.educationbug.org/a/won-t-and-will-not.html