WHEN CONTRACTIONS WERE DISREPUTABLE—TRUE GRIT. I was told that the characters in the recent movie True Grit do not use contractions. I checked out the discussion on two language blogs. This post at the Grammarphobia blog cites an interview with the Coen brothers (who made the movie) in which they were asked about why contractions are infrequent in the movie. Ethan responded that: “We’ve been told that the language and all that formality is faithful to how people talked in the period.†The Grammarphobia post says that contractions were “normal in speech and respectable in writing’ until the early 1700’s when writers like Addison, Swift and Pope began questioning them with the result that: “By the late 18th century, contractions were in disgrace, tolerated in speech but considered by language authorities an embarrassment in writing.” This post at the Language Log blog says that “won’t” was one of the contractions that Addison attacked in the Spectator in 1711, and that “won’t” was “damned in the same breath as ain’t” in a speech in America in 1846 (“absolutely vulgar”). Contractions began to be fully respectable again in the early 20th century. Both blog posts, using Mark Twain as a guide, think that people at the time of True Grit would have used contractions when talking without hesitation.
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Perhaps the narrator of the book True grit wouldn’t have used contractions (I don’t recall whether she did.) She was “respectable.”
The examples of the use of contractions in the book that are given in the Language Log post seem to be said by other characters and not the narrator. I think you’ve got a good reason for why the there aren’t a lot of contractions in the book—it’s an attempt to contrast respectable characters from less respectable characters.
Another fictional character that did not use contractions: Lt. Commander Data of the USS Enterprise.
I would say that Rudyard Kipling was a respected 19th century writer. His 1897 book “Captains Courageous” contains more contractions than any novel I have ever seen. Admittedly, he uses contractions mostly to convey the heavy New England accents of his main characters. Yet he portrays the characters as hard working, noble and honorable. Not at all less respectable than the other characters in the book.