Breaktime - Overheard

24th June 2011, 1:00am

... in a Year 9 English class

Teacher: I’ll give a merit to anyone who can tell me the technical term for this process of shortening “Is not” to “isn’t”.

Pupil 1: Abbreviation?

Teacher: It’s a good suggestion, but there is an even better term. Think of pregnant ladies: what could they have that’s like what we do to the missing letter?

Pupil 2: Abortion?

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