contractions

Someone we know is about to have a baby; the term of pregnancy is nearing completion. She had been having contractions, and now through the wonders of modern science her contractions have, well, contracted. Her contract with nature, though, reads, somewhere in the fine print, that Nature will have the last say about her baby's first say, and when it will be. Contractions. I was thinking: Why call them contractions? Pregnancy is all about expansion, ain't it? Just look at the impending mama, the pregnant, the full, the expanded version of womanhood. Why not call contractions "expansions"? Of course, being a male, I was reminded that contractions are called contractions because the uterus is contracting. Well, okay. If you say so. But those contractions still complete the whole expansion regime, don't they? Grammatically, contractions are another matter altogether, being the combining of two words and then using an apostrophe to stand in for missing letters. so, even grammatically contractions contract, but do they really? It's more like they are a shortcut to expansion. (Don't can't won't hasn't didn't aren't isn't hadn't and so on; find me some that are not so negative.) So there we are again: contractions masquerading again as expansions. More or less. Depending. On a letter here or there. Or one's viewpoint. So, here's to

c o n t r a c t i o n s

contrarily speaking.