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Can we contract the sentence

Amy has had many different jobs

to this one?

Amy's had many different jobs

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  • I'm confused why you think a contraction can't be used. Are you asking about contractions in general? English is all about contractions, especially informally. Or do you think there's something unique about the particular sentence you used? If so, I can't tell what it is.
    – Jason Bassford
    Commented Aug 12, 2019 at 5:31

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Yes, you certainly can, and in speech most people would.

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Omitting "has" changes the meaning slightly, because it changes nthe tense. It is not a simple contraction or elision.

Amy has had many different jobs.

This is in the Present Perfect tense. In this construction it indicates that Amy has had many jobs over a period starting in nthe past, and continuing into the present, or over the course of her entire career to date.

Amy's had many different jobs.

This is too easily confused with

Amy had many different jobs.

This third example is in the simple past, and implies thatm there was a period when Amy had many jobs, but this period is now over, and ended soem time in the past.

The second example, using the "'s" could be considered a simple contraction of the first. But I would advise against using it, because it obscures the "has" ,that is the marker of the present perfect, and is too easily confused.

It is true that even between the first and third example the difference in meaning is slight and subtle, and in many cases would not matter.

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  • I don't know what this answer is going on about. The first paragraph is irrelevant because has is not omitted. Whether too things are easily confused has no bearing on their grammaticality; it could have a bearing on whether or not they are idiomatic, but I don't believe it does here: I don't find "Amy's had" and "Amy had" particularly likely to be confused, the iWeb corpus (of written text, of course) has 47 thousand hits for 's had against 328 thousand for has had. I find even Amy's started and Amy started to be usually distinguishable.
    – Colin Fine
    Commented Aug 11, 2019 at 22:28

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