Nursing Board Exam Reviewer
While many legal authorities say that contractions don’t belong in legal writing, Bryan Garner, a leading authority on legal writing, advocates their use as a way to make legal writing, including opinions and rules, less stuffy and more natural. I searched COCA for 77 contractions and their spelt-out counterparts (there are others, but life is short). Probably the most memorable/unusual was a woman having her first baby and contractions were never more than 10-7 mins apart. Persistent contractions that have no rhythm but are five-to-seven minutes apart or less should be reported to your physician or midwife.
For a list …