Contraction question

[LostInAnomie]

Why is the word "won't" the contraction for "will not"? Shouldn't it be "willn't"?

[Dookus]

1. dammit...

now I'll be awake all night....

[madmax]

2. Thought this was a childbirth question.

:silly:

[Endangered Specie]

5. I highly doubt anyone having those would be capable of posting on DU...

all things considered ;)

[opiate69]

3. because it's actually the contraction of

"would not"

[LostInAnomie]

4. What is "wouldn't" the contraction of then?

[opiate69]

6. If I'm not mistaken,

"wouldn't" isn't actually grammatically correct. Just a colloquialism which worked it's way into the mainstream, kind of like "ain't".

[LostInAnomie]

7. Then what is the correct contraction for "will not"?

[BlueJazz]

8. Wilt

.

[LostInAnomie]

11. "I wilt eat green eggs and ham."

It just doesn't sound right.

[opiate69]

9. OK.. looks like I was wrong..

just did a little research, and it seems that "would" is the past tense of "will". Apparently that's where the "o" comes from... he... who knew?

[suigeneris]

10. Google. Knows everything. I've gotta buy some.

http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-won1.htm

From Donald Eckhardt; similar questions came from Joe Pallas, David Beckham, Margaret Diamond, Lyle Wiedeman, and John Elliot: “You discussed the missing apostrophe in shan’t recently, but not the related contraction for will not—won’t—which not only has a missing apostrophe, but the substitute letter o. How so?”
OK, everyone, I know when I’m outnumbered! Apologies for having taken so long to produce the answer to this one.
Actually willn’t is not unknown historically as a contracted form of will not, though it has never been common; Charlotte Brontë used it in Shirley in 1849 in order to represent local Yorkshire speech: “That willn’t wash, Miss”. It turns up also in Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell: “No, indeed I willn’t tell, come what may”.
So why the o in the contraction when it should be i? The answer lies in the irregularity of the verb will: it varied a great deal in different places and at different times. Though the present tense was often wil or wille, there was a period when it appeared as wol or wolle; this was especially common in the Midlands of England in the late medieval period, and may have been an unconscious imitation of the simple past tense, which was spelled and said with an o as standard. For some reason, though the present tense eventually standardised on will, the contraction of the negative settled down to be won’t, using the vowel from the other form.

[i_no_knothing]

12. won't

I think it is an anomolly.......11(eleven) should be "one-t_one"

[i_no_knothing]

13. too bad that esperanta language never took off

[i_no_knothing]

14. willn't could be a word that poets would understand

try it out on a poetry sight