Aggregation of contracted and not contracted verb forms (cannot, doesn't)?

[Presskopp]

I count

18x does not vs. 5x doesn't
28x cannot vs. 4x can not vs. 1x can't (+ 1x in 'administration')
lots of is not vs 1x isn't

Do we want to combine them?

[ramiy]

Related: #39176

[Presskopp]

@desrosj What is the decision? What forms of expression would we use preferrably?

[socalchristina]

Hi @Presskopp. I see in
ticket:39176#comment:4 that the preferred form of expression is to replace doesn't contraction with does not. Is that the consensus on contractions @desrosj? I'm happy to work on this but I don't see a reference to the particular file.

[aandrewdixon]

Personally, I think the non-contracted verb form is much clearer, particularly for people were their first language is not English but they are using an English install for whatever reason.

[aandrewdixon]

Patch changes "can not" and "can't" to "cannot", "doesn't" to "does not" and "isn't" to "is not".

[aandrewdixon]

Trying again as my first attempt somehow missed the whole wp-includes directory when I was searching, plus I found some other words like haven't, couldn't, etc... that needed changing as well.

[Presskopp]

Do not you ..

should be avoided, if you ask me

[francina]

The ticket was mentioned during the new contributors chat on May 26th. The contracted verbs mentioned by the original reporter are probably not the only ones.
I suggest we make a list of all the possible contractions we should be looking for in the source code and evaluate which ones have to be "searched and replaced" and which ones should stay as contracted forms. As mentioned by @Presskopp "Do not you" is not a better option than "Don't you".

Top of my mind: potential contracted versions of "to be" (I'm, You're, Isn't it, etc...), to have (haven't), and can/could as mentioned by @aandrewdixon.

Does anyone else have any input on this? If you do, please leave your comment. Thanks!

[SergeyBiryukov]

Replying to francina:

I suggest we make a list of all the possible contractions we should be looking for in the source code and evaluate which ones have to be "searched and replaced" and which ones should stay as contracted forms.

When searching the core, make sure to also look for apostrophes encoded as numeric entities, e.g. doesn’t in addition to doesn't.

This PR makes the following changes in expanding encoded contractions into its composite words:

• doesn’t > does not
• can’t > can not
• won’t > will not
• couldn’t > could not
• don’t > do not
• isn’t > is not
• haven’t > have not
• aren’t > are not
• wasn’t > was not
• we’re > we are
• there’s > there is
• I’m > I am
• you’re > you are
• you’d > you would

Note that this PR does NOT make changes of cannot to can not as I was not certain that was really helpful, but can amend the PR to make those changes if desired.

Similarly this PR does not change un-encoded contractions into its composite words (e.g., doesn't > 'does not') as many of those code comments and there are LOTS of them, but again is that is desired then I can amend the PR to include those changes as well.

Trac ticket: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/38913

[audrasjb]

There are some conflicts in the proposed PR, so I'm adding needs-refresh workflow keyword.

[audrasjb]

As per today's bug scrub:

This ticket is still a good candidate for 5.9, but we need a committer to finish the work, as the patch need to be committed soon after the refresh to avoid new conflicts (76 files are impacted by this patch).

[audrasjb]

patch refreshed against trunk

Trac ticket: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/38913

[audrasjb]

New PR available for review ☝️

[prbot]

​hellofromtonya commented on ​PR #1840:

@audrasjb the tests are failing as the strings changed. Mary Baum is reviewing the string changes to help me out. Once she's done and it's all okay, then the tests can be updated to match.

[audrasjb]

PR refreshed @hellofromTonya. Tests are passing now.
I didn't include the proposed string changes are they are changing qunit strings (those are internal strings)

[prbot]

​audrasjb commented on ​PR #1840:

@audrasjb the tests are failing as the strings changed. Mary Baum is reviewing the string changes to help me out. Once she's done and it's all okay, then the tests can be updated to match.

PR refreshed :)

[hellofromTonya]

@audrasjb I'm not seeing the changes Mary Baum did, such as cannot instead of can not. Are those to be included in this commit?

[audrasjb]

@hellofromTonya maybe I'm misleading, but the diff file proposed by Mary was addressing strings used in unit tests so as I commented in the related thread, I'm not sure it's worth replacing these qunit sample sentences (they could be lorem ipsum text as well).
For reference: ​https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C02RQBWTW/p1636425668068900

[audrasjb]

Given the huge perimeter of this change (see this Trac thread ​https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C02RQBWTW/p1636501241200000), the decision is to move this change to Future release, hopefully to early 6.0.

Removing commit for now.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Might be relevant for when the ticket gets picked up again:
​Cannot, Can Not or Can’t—Which Should I Use? | Grammarly:

Don’t use can not when you mean cannot. The only time you’re likely to see can not written as separate words is when the word “can” happens to precede some other phrase that happens to start with “not”:

• Example: We can not only break even, but also turn a profit.
• Example: The company’s new product can not only reduce emissions, but also trap some of the existing greenhouse gasses.

Here is a quick summary:

• Can’t is a contraction of cannot, and it’s best suited for informal writing.
• In formal writing and where contractions are frowned upon, use cannot.
• It is possible to write can not, but you generally find it only as part of some other construction, such as “not only . . . but also.”

[hellofromTonya]

Hey 6.0 is now available. Moving it into 6.0. Removing myself as the reviewing as there's more work to be done before it's ready for commit.