crying/cryin' (apostrophe to remove "g" in "ing" endings) (2024)

Hello. I have a question. Have you ever noticed that, in written texts and above all in lyrics, native speakers tend to use an apostrophe in "ing" endings, in order to remove the letter "g"? I mean, instead of writing "crying", they write "cryin' ". What does that mean? Why do they do that?

thanx

questionnnaire said:

Hello. I have a question. Have you ever noticed that, in written texts and above all in lyrics, native speakers tend to use an apostrophe in "ing" endings, in order to remove the letter "g"? I mean, instead of writing "crying", they write "cryin' ". What does that mean? Why do they do that?

thanx

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It's written that way to imitate the way that many English speakers change the -ng ending to an -n in conversation, just as, for example, many Caribbean speakers of Spanish drop final consonants and say "hermano'" when they mean "hermanos." We preserve the -ng when writing, except when we want the writing to sound like informal conversation.

duvija said:

The apostrophe is used in English to indicate that some letters are missing.
I can't (from 'cannot'), I'd (did/would/had), X'mas, etc. (Some are really funny).

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That's correct, except "xmas" (or "x-mas) doesn't have an apostrophe. X is shorthand for Christ (It looks like the Greek letter chi, the first letter of Christ).

Hullo, everyone.

As Chris says. "It's written that way to imitate the way in which many English speakers change the -ng ending to an -n in conversation",

and I would add that they do so because the standard pronunciation of final "ng" does not contain any "g" sound, but rather a different variety of "n", in phonetic script /ŋ/.

GS

Apparently, the gerund and the present participle (different things sharing the same form) have different etymological roots, that were once pronounced differently. In some modern dialects, though the standard spelling is the same, they are still pronounced differently (going vs. goin').

Look at the examples of Etymology 1 and 2 on the Wiktionary entry for -ing.
Under pronunciation it says that -ing is standard and -in' is colloquial, but also...

Approximately 60% of English speakers pronounce gerund -ing (etymology 1) differently from participial -ing (etymology 2). In such cases, the gerund form is pronounced /ɪŋ/, and the participial form is pronounced /ɪn/ or /iːn/. This actually reflects the older etymology of the two forms, as the participial form originally did not have a g, so these speakers are not actually "dropping the g" in the historic sense.

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At the same time it is quite right what others say: a lot of people, in informal speech, leave of the <g>. I don't pronounce the present participle and gerund differently, and in either case I can often leave the g sound off.

Edit:
Gerund (historically -ing/ung)
the making of the film
Roofing is a material that covers a roof.

Present participle (historically -ende)
Rollin' stones gather no moss.
You are makin' a mess.

Though, as I say, I add or remove a g at whim.

Hullo, Wal.

The historically different origins of the two suffixes is paramount to the understanding of the two different functions of what English grammars often simply call "-ing form", and this is an important part of my EFL classes and teacher-training courses.
It never came to my mind that the different genesis (genes

s?) might influence the pronunciation of the suffixes. It's fascinating, but I imagine you do not really think present-day speakers are aware of what they do when ... they do it, do you?

GS

Giorgio Spizzi said:

Hullo, Wal.

The historically different origins of the two suffixes is paramount to the understanding of the two different functions of what English grammars often simply call "-ing form", and this is an important part of my EFL classes and teacher-training courses.
It never came to my mind that the different genesis (genes

e

s?) might influence the pronunciation of the suffixes. It's fascinating, but I imagine you do not really think present-day speakers are aware of what they do when ... they do it, do you?

GS

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No, I grew up pronouncing it -ing in all circumstances and -in' creeped in later in informal speech. Maybe the frequency corresponds more or less to the etymological roots, but I'm not sure, and it's difficult to say.
It is interesting; it's something I only discovered a few months ago myself.

What follows is not "texting jargon" born with the advent of cells or computers. I remember people writing regular letters to friends and so forth back in the 60's and people would write:

Para q'

Por q'

etc.

Now, I am not sure what other ways to write certain words were popular at that time, and all of them also reflected the way people spoke.