In speech, when you contract “could have,” “would have,” or “should have,” you end up with what sounds like, “could of,” “would of,” and “should of.” However, that is not what should be written. The proper contracted forms of could/would/should have are could’ve/would’ve/should’ve.
And yes, could’ve is an acceptable contraction. What is not acceptable is saying “could of” instead, because that is just plain wrong.
One of my all-time favorite movies is The Usual Suspects. I could watch it on a loop, and I’d still never get sick of it. If you haven’t seen it, I’m going to spoil the ending, and if you keep reading and get mad at me, it’s your own fault because that movie has been around since 1995 and you really should have seen it by now.
The vast majority of the movie is Kevin Spacey’s con man character telling a cop about a job that results in a huge explosion and lots of deaths. He says the mastermind behind the job is a man named Keyser Soze. At the end of the movie, we learn that Kevin Spacey is Keyser Soze, and a good number of details from the story that he told the police were made up from things he observed in the cop’s office.
The first thing your brain does after it picks itself up off the floor is get confused: Wait—if he made up those details, what other bits of information did he make up? Was anything he just told us real? Is Keyser Soze even real?
And just like that, the movie that was so straightforward for the first 100 minutes is suddenly a completely different movie.
While colons can be intimidating at first, they’re lovely, distinguished punctuation marks that are quite easy to use once you get the hang of them. Let’s dig a little deeper into how to use colons correctly.
Critically acclaimed and bestselling author Roxane Gay teaches a MasterClass on writing for social change. But will this course really help you with your essay or fiction writing? Today, I’m sharing my honest thoughts in this Roxane Gay MasterClass Review, and whether I think this class will benefit writers who wish to write about social change.
“Fiction is actually one of the best ways for finding truth,” Amy Tan says. If you’re looking to uncover the truth in your own writing—and make it even more authentic and emotionally impactful—her MasterClass might be exactly what you need. In this Amy Tan MasterClass Review, I’m sharing my honest thoughts about the course and whether I think it will help you bring your characters and stories to life.
