1. Treat Contractions as Single Words
* Ignore the apostrophe. For alphabetizing purposes, a contraction is treated as a single word.
* Example: "I'm" comes before "in" because you're comparing "Im" to "in."
2. Alphabetize by the First Letter
* Standard Alphabetical Order: Follow the usual alphabetical order, starting with the first letter.
* Example:
* "can't" comes before "cat" because "c" comes before "d".
* "don't" comes before "dry" because "d" comes before "f".
3. If First Letters Are the Same, Move to the Second Letter
* Continue comparing letters: If the first letters are the same, move to the second letter and so on.
* Example:
* "aren't" comes before "art" because "r" comes before "t".
* "it's" comes before "its" because "t" comes before "s".
4. Consider the Entire Contracted Word
* Whole words: Don't just focus on the first few letters, consider the entire contracted word.
* Example:
* "they're" comes before "there" because "they're" is a single word, and it's completely alphabetical before "there".
Here's a simple example:
1. aren't
2. can't
3. don't
4. it's
5. isn't
6. shouldn't
7. that's
8. they're
9. wasn't
10. weren't
11. wouldn't
Let me know if you'd like more examples or have any other alphabetizing questions!