I am curious whether it's just my brain that doesn't work right

[dr4b]

You're describing your travel experience to someone... which of these sentences would you SAY? As in, speaking, not as in writing an email/etc -- you're at the office or somewhere talking to somebody. Assume that you actually have the experience of travelling to France and Spain at some point in your life, and someone's asking you about what countries you have the experience of travelling to or plan to travel to.

(oh, and assume appropriate abbreviation, ie, "I've" instead of "I have", if that helps.)

[Poll #1413618]

And a better question: does it change if you are writing a report or article rather than just speaking?

Comments

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

Certainly if you need to emphasize one of the contracted words (eg, in negating someone's statement) then you wouldn't contract them. And it's not improper to leave them uncontracted, it's just not usual. (Or perhaps, not 'friendly'--noncontraction is (in my dialect) a sign that one is using a higher register.)

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. Literary style does that, it being one of the higher registers I alluded to. My "Speaking:" heading was imprecise--a better tag might have been "Conversational register:".

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

Yes. See my other comment to Deanna about pretentious latinate vocabulary. :)