Counting contractions as one or two words



I read this in a product review, and it has been bugging me all day.



Three words: it's really cheap.



"It's" is obviously a contraction of two words, but does it count as one or two words?



Answer



MS Word and the concordoncer I’m using count them as one. Some dictionaries may count them as two. It all depends on what your purpose is in counting.


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