The English Oracle

Is "that've" a valid contraction for "that have"?

--------------------------------------------------
Hire the world's top talent on demand or became one of them at Toptal: https://topt.al/25cXVn
--------------------------------------------------

Music by Eric Matyas
https://www.soundimage.org
Track title: The Builders

--

Chapters
00:00 Is &Quot;That'Ve&Quot; A Valid Contraction For &Quot;That Have&Quot;?
00:26 Answer 1 Score 4
00:39 Accepted Answer Score 6
00:58 Answer 3 Score 1
01:16 Answer 4 Score 0
01:35 Thank you

--

Full question
https://english.stackexchange.com/questi...

--

Content licensed under CC BY-SA
https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/lice...

--

Tags
#contractions

#avk47



ACCEPTED ANSWER

Score 6


It's certainly found in speech alongside who've and which've, and that's how the pronunciations are normally represented in writing. It's a matter of judgement whether you use them in writing when not reporting actual speech, depending on the degree of formality of the context.




ANSWER 2

Score 4


As a native speaker of English, I consider "that've" to be a perfectly valid word. Grammarians be damned!




ANSWER 3

Score 1


I definitely use it in spoken English (native of the United Kingdom) and have heard it used often here. I've never seen it written that I can remember. Google books search doesn't find much and the Google Ngram search only brings up a very small number.




ANSWER 4

Score 0


I do use it in writing. But with a caveat. I write novels and only use it in dialogue to simulate local speech. (Pacific Northwest for me)

My editors accept it in these circumstances. And only these circumstances.