Crack'd, bless'd and lov'd – where have all the missing letters gone?

​From time to time, members ask about words such as crack'd, bless'd or lov'd. Have the apostrophe rules changed, or are these simply old-fashioned mistakes?

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The answer is that they're neither.

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These spellings were once a perfectly normal way of showing that one or more letters had been omitted. Crack'd stands for cracked, bless'd for blessed, and lov'd for loved. The apostrophe tells us that the "e" has disappeared.

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Writers, poets and printers used these contractions extensively from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. They helped fit words neatly into lines of poetry and often reflected the way the words were pronounced. If you've ever read Shakespeare, Jane Austen or Dickens in their original editions, you've probably come across dozens of them without giving them much thought.

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Today, however, they're largely confined to historical texts, poetry and the occasional stylistic flourish. You certainly shouldn't begin writing walk'd in your emails or finish'd in your shopping list, however tempting it may be.

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The same principle explains other familiar contractions such as o'er (over), ne'er (never), e'en (even), 'tis (it is) and 'twas (it was). In every case, the apostrophe marks omitted letters.

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​​So, if you stumble across crack'd in an old book, don't be tempted to write to the publisher pointing out the "missing e". The apostrophe is doing precisely the job it was intended to do: marking omitted letters. In fact, it's performing one of the apostrophe's oldest and most respectable duties. The only thing that's really disappeared is the fashion for writing that way.