Mark's tall. (Mark is tall) / or / Mark's at home (Mark is at home).

[Fate]

Hi, how are you?
I've got a question. I'm a new english teacher, and also Brazilian, so English isn't my first language, and I've been having trouble trying to find a reliable source to get rid of this doubt.
It's about abbreviations, can I contract the verb BE with proper nouns?

Example:
Mark's tall. (Mark is tall) / or / Mark's at home (Mark is at home).

Is this contraction grammatically correct?

I always thought I could only contract the verb BE with personal pronouns like (I/You/He/She/It/We/They), but recently I've seen some books around here utilizing this kind of contraction (just like the example) and I feel very conflicted
Please help me out

 

[Tarheel]

"Mark's at home" is a commonly used type of construction.

(I would probably use use everywhere you would use utilize.)

 

[emsr2d2]

@Fate Welcome to the forum. Please note that I have changed your thread title. Titles should include some/all of the words/phrases/sentences you're asking us to examine. Your actual question should appear only in the main body of the post.

 

[Tarheel]

Mark's tall.

At first I didn't like that one, but then I thought of a possible real life example. (See below.)

Debbie: Is that your brother Mark?
Pam: Yes, it is.
Debbie: Mark's tall. Mark's really tall.
Pam: In fact, he's on our high school's basketball team. He's really good too.

We do, of course, make contractions from two words, not one. So we don't contract the verb. We make contractions using it.

 

[5jj]

So we don't contract the verb. We make contractions using it.

We use the contracted form of the verb.

 

[Tarheel]

We use the contracted form of the verb.

A contraction is a shortened form of two words. An example is "it's", which is a contraction for "it is".

A contraction is not a shortened form of one word. It's a shortened form of two words.

 

[Fate]

A contraction is a shortened form of two words. An example is "it's", which is a contraction for "it is".

A contraction is not a shortened form of one word. It's a shortened form of two words.

I got confused about this because I rarely see any material (informal material, like a conversation) using the BE contracted like the examples I gave.
Do you guys normally use it in daily conversations, or exchanging it to a subject pronoun is more preferable?
Example:
Instead of "Mark's tall" = "He's tall" /or/ "Jane and Maria're at home" = "They're at home"
Are both styles of constructions common or do they seem weird? (In both speech or in a written conversation)

 

[Rover_KE]

Fate, you don't need to quote our replies back to us just to thank us for them.

Hover your cursor over 'Like' in any post you find helpful, find the Thank' icon and click on that.

Please try it with this post now.

 

[Tarheel]

@Fate Well, "He's tall" is much more common than "Mark's tall" if only because most people are not named Mark. Also, "They're" is a very common contraction.

(I wish I could unsee "Maria're".)

Added: The phrase "styles of constructions" is awkward at best.

 

[Fate]

@Fate Well, "He's tall" is much more common than "Mark's tall" if only because most people are not named Mark. Also, "They're" is a very common contraction.

(I wish I could unsee "Maria're".)

Added: The phrase "styles of constructions" is awkward at best.

The "Maria're" also made me feel weird haha. I've seen some posts around the internet with people saying that the contraction 's (as in "is") is just as common as using 're (as in "are") with proper nouns. That is why I was having a hard time to understand it (I've never seen it being used like this, just with the personal pronouns). Also the names I chose are just examples to make it easier to explain my doubts but I was referring to all types of names.

 

[Tarheel]

@Fate Please say "prefer" and not "not more prefer". (That kind of stuff gives me a headache.)

 

[Tarheel]

@Fate Please say "prefer" and not "more prefer". (That kind of stuff gives me a headache.)

@Fate Also, say: " That is why I was having trouble understanding it."

 

[Glizdka]

It's very common. Many textbooks make use of it when they teach the Saxon genitive and how to distinguish possessives from contractions. You'll definitely encounter schemes and exercises that rely on it in your career as a teacher.

Glizdka's sure Fate's question's been answered.