Coulda, shoulda, woulda!

In America I see a lot of people write “would of”, “could of”, and “should of”.

Perhaps it’s because that’s how they pronounce the contractions would’ve, could’ve, and should’ve.

Living in the Midwest now, I often also hear these pronounced as “woulda”, “coulda”, and “shoulda”.

Just remember the apostrophe in a contraction stands for missing letters and you’ll have no problem writing them properly as “would have”, “could have”, and “should have”.

Wendy Wood, proofreader

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