In English, there's a clear distinction between abbreviation & contraction, and just plain slang.

For instance, one can use the following contractions in professional documents:

it's
you're
I'll
You'd

But if you just stick apostraphes everywhere, as in:

Me 'n' John went fishing.

Then it's just plain slang.

What about Irish though? If you read through Lughaidh's posts, you see apostraphes everywhere; he commonly contracts "an" to "a'", and many other words. How accepted is this in Irish?

I very rarely pronounce "and" as it's written; I usually pronounce it as "an", but still I always write it the same -- I never write: "'n'" or "an'".

While I'm on the topic: how do you write the contraction of "is é", for instance:

Is é Seán an buachaill is óige.

Do you use an apostraphe or not?:

Sé Seán an buachaill is óige.
-or-
'Sé Seán an buachaill is óige.

Similarly with the contraction of "agus" to one syallable:

Chuaigh Seán is Máire.
-or-
Chuaigh Seán 's Máire.

I use 'S é and Seán 's Máire

I once heard a television evangelist on a worldwide satellite hookup say "anni domino" for "Anno Domini." He gave it a southern pronunciation so it came out as Annie Domino as in the game of dominoes. He then went on to repeat it at least half a dozen times until I wanted to scream at him.

I generally deplore nit-pickers who prowl this site; so forgive me FnB, but I just have to nudge you ever so gently regarding the spelling of --

apostrophe.

There, now I feel better.

And now on to your topic. I always thought Sé without a space or an apostrophe was correct for Is é.

I'm always open to grammatical and spelling corrections... irregardless of the language!

The reason I brought this up is that I find it unpleasant reading through posts that are littered with apostophes; firstly I find them confusing at time, secondly I find them ugly (I prefer "and" over "'n'", regardless of how it is to be pronounced).

quote:

I'm always open to grammatical and spelling corrections... irregardless of the language!

Táid ann a deir nach focal ceart é "irregardless"; gur chóir "regardless" a rá. ;-)

quote:

The reason I brought this up is that I find it unpleasant reading through posts that are littered with apostophes

Aontaím leat ansin. Is fearr liom an fhoirm "iomlán" nó "theibí" den fhocal. Scríobhaim "agus", "an", "duit", cé gur minic a deirim is, 's, a', dhuit.

quote:

Táid ann a deir nach focal ceart é "irregardless"; gur chóir "regardless" a rá. ;-)

Táim ar an eolas faoin argóint sin... ach is fearr liom "irregardless" ag amanna -- mothaím níos mó béime leis!

There's a big difference between how certain words are pronounced in certain dialects (or even in certain contexts!). I pesonally never pronounce the "d" in "and", but would for emphasis, eg.:

Me: They chose me 'n' Philip
Other Person: They chose you instead of Philip?
Me: No, me and Philip.

Come to think of it, I only think I'd pronounce it right if someone misheard me, as in the above.

Think of the word "yes"... what percentage of the English speaking world actually pronounce that "s"? I'd hate to read through a page of someone writing "ye'" instead of "yes". But regardless (or irregardless!) of how one pronounces it, we all write "yes".

I dare say that if we all didn't have formal English classes in school, that we wouldn't even know that we should be saying "Yes" instead of "Yeah"... and if we all had our own written standard depending on dialect, then "yes" would probably confuse those who didn't learn all the dialects comprehensively at school.

what percentage of the English speaking world actually pronounce that "s"?

Learners, teachers, and the Queen, maybe :-D

>>irregardless
>>mothaím níos mó béime leis!

I confess I smothered a giggle when I read that word...
More seriously, I find it interesting, since it should logically refer to the opposite of "regardless"...
"irregardless of" = "depending on" ?

>>what percentage of the English speaking world actually pronounce that "s"?
>>Learners, teachers, and the Queen, maybe :-D

I don't think so...

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=irregardless

>>what percentage of the English speaking world actually pronounce that "s"?

Et moi.

Is the use of a negative suffix and prefix in the same word as in "ir-regard-less" different from the phrase

"ná ní XXXX ach oiread?