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She's a black belt in judo. (source: judo)

Is She's a contraction of "She has" or "She is"? At first sight, I thought She's was a contraction of "She has", but I just found the following sentence:

He is a black belt in karate. (source: karate)

I don't know why this sentence is possible. It seems illogical to me.

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  • Intuitively, using "She is a black belt in judo" is not much more illogical than the common Japanese joke "watashi wa unagi desu", the "is" doesn't necessarily mean that the person is literally a belt.
    – justhalf
    Commented Aug 11 at 7:05
  • @justhalf But surely, everyone who has watched Friends knows what unagi means? ;-) As Ross points out, it's not something you have but something you are (unless I misremember it).
    – Tsundoku
    Commented Aug 13 at 13:08

6 Answers 6

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Both "is" and "has" are grammatically correct. According to this NGram graph, "has" is more common, but "she's" is generally an abbreviation for "she is" rather than "she has", so I would interpret "She's" as "She is" in your sentence.

Black belt is a rank in martial arts grading systems, in the same way as sergeant or corporal are army ranks. The two sentences below are therefore equivalent.

He is a sergeant in the army
She is a black belt in Judo

A black belt can also be regarded as a qualification, so the following sentences are also equivalent:

She has a degree in physics
She has a black belt in Judo

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    It's also a literal belt in some cases, so the possessive could be appropriate to that.
    – Darrel Hoffman
    Commented Aug 11 at 15:07
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    Commenting on your answer because it's highest-upvoted currently. I just wanted to emphasize (because OP used the transatlantic-differences tag) that there is a difference between AmE and BrE here. In BrE it might be true that "she's" can be either "she is" or "she has." But in AmE it is exceedingly rare for "she's" to be "she has." It is (nearly) always going to be "she is."
    – randomhead
    Commented Aug 11 at 16:21
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    Thank you, randomhead. I did not use the transatlantic-differences tag. It seems that someone added it. According to a Japanese teacher of English, Americans do not say "I've a pen" or "Have you a pen?".
    – Kaguyahime
    Commented Aug 11 at 17:58
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    @Kaguyahime Americans would almost always add the word "got" to those sentences. "I've got a pen" or "Have you got a pen?" On the other hand, without the abbreviation it would be more common without "got"- "I have a pen," "Do you have a pen?"
    – GalacticCowboy
    Commented Aug 11 at 21:38
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    @randomhead as a BrE speaker, I am not sure there's much difference here. I think is also extremely rare in BrE for "she's" to mean "she has" in this sense. In my experience, "she has" would only be contracted when followed by a past participle.
    – Especially Lime
    Commented Aug 12 at 8:36
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Check out the figure of speech called "metonymy" It's where you replace the word for something by an attribute.

Here is a paper: Metonymies we (don’t) translate by The case of complex metonymies Whether a particular metonmyn translates to your language will affect whether you think it is "logical" or not. If you language happens not to use "black belt" in the same way (IIRC, in Japanese you would say ichidanshodan="start step" and not kuroiobi="belt that is black") then it would seem illogical.

Some examples are saying "He's first violin in the orchestra" or (thinking about the Olympics "Tola won gold in the marathon." In both cases logically they don't make sense. He isn't a violin. Tola won a race; Tola won a medal (that was made with gold).

It's just the same with "black belt" The object stands for the person who has earned it. So "He's"= "He is" is correct.

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  • The OP's example is "She's a black belt in Judo". Is it still metonymy when we add a different subject and an object complement? Compare: The crown's in crisis (The British monarchy's in crisis). Can we equally say "She's [part of] the crown"? As for "gold" it's just short for "a gold medal" i.e. Tola won a gold [medal] Where is the metonymy? Certainly, you can win a prize that is "made of" gold.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Aug 10 at 15:14
  • Whether a particular metonymmy is common or not is a matter of idiom. We don't tend to say "She's a crown" But we might say "She's one of the crowned heads of Europe" or something like that. Of course "gold" is short for "gold medal". That is the essence of metonmy, you shortern an expression by referring to it by one of it's attributes.
    – James K
    Commented Aug 10 at 21:59
  • But without context that "won gold" could be anything, how do we know it's an Olympic medal? It could be a gold platter, trophy, chain, or watch. When we talk about the White House or 10 Downing Street we instantly know what is being referred to.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Aug 10 at 22:41
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    Note that in many Japanese martial arts, 'first ranking' would be expressed as Shodan, not ichidan.
    – Kirt
    Commented Aug 11 at 0:34
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    Sure, you might want to refer to the source mentioned in this answer too.
    – James K
    Commented Aug 11 at 9:14
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In American English, in that particular example, it it understood to be a contraction for "is".

It's like saying "She's a lieutenant", as "black belt" is understood to be a rank that is represented visually with a black belt.

In American English, if we wanted to say that she possesses a black belt, or has been promoted to that rank using the verb has, we wouldn't contract but would say

She has a black belt in judo.

This doesn't happen in American English with has when it is not used as an auxiliary verb but the lexical verb meaning "possess, own":

She's a cat and two dogs.

But we do contract with the auxiliary verb:

She's been there many times.

And when the meaning is something other than "possess, own" then we will often contract:

Sorry, can't talk now. I've a meeting to go to.

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    I don't see a fat lot of difference between BrE I've a cheque and AmE I've a check. It's essentially just OP's specific context that makes the difference, and that would apply for all Anglophones.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Aug 10 at 10:20
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    @FumbleFingers Thanks once again for schooling me on American English, a language I've been speaking for decades. For those who might not know, you're a Brit. We murkins strongly favor uncontracted have when it's the lexical verb but use the contracted form with the auxiliary. In American English "I've a dog" is rare compared to "I have a dog". You'll hear "I've a dog" down south more than elsewhere.
    – TimR
    Commented Aug 10 at 10:45
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    @FumbleFingers There's a significant leap between I've a cheque/check and the version with "got" i.e. I've got a check:
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Aug 10 at 11:45
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    I don't dispute that AmE prefers not to contract have in such contexts. I'm simply saying the same applies to BrE, so it's potentially misleading to repeat American English three times in this answer. It's quite true that relative prevalence shown by NGrams is affected by the fact that AmE is more likely to include got, but that's not relevant to my point.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Aug 10 at 14:31
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    @FumbleFingers The distinction I made with respect to American English is that the OP's specific example would be understood as "is" in American English.The OP's question is specifically about the contraction. We would not understand it to mean has.
    – TimR
    Commented Aug 10 at 19:43
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She is (or has) a black belt in judo.

Both interpretations are possible.

Is a black belt in is a common usage and has many pages of hits.

We could interpret the OP’s example as

She is a black belt (exponent) in judo.

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“A black belt” is something you are, where you have qualifications, often in a figurative sense, meaning you are very good at something. It is also something you have; a physical belt in black Color.

Now imagine this lady kept the blue belt that she received three years earlier. You would say “she has her blue belt still at the bottom of her wardrobe”. You wouldn’t say “she’s a blue belt”.

Now imagine another woman, not a lady, who has stolen a physical black belt or bought one on a jumble sale. She is not a black belt. You wouldn’t say “she’s a black belt” as an abbreviation for “she has a black belt”.

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In British English the contraction, denoting possession, would commonly be:

She's got a black belt in judo. (She has got a …) YES
She's got her own flat in London. (YES)
She has her own flat in London. (YES)
She's her own flat in London (COLLOQUIAL)

Consequently, in British English, the contraction ‘s without got is more likely to stand for

She is a black belt in Judo.

We use the linking verb be to describe a person or thing; e.g., he's a mathematician, she's Spanish, dinner's ready, the trees are particularly old etc.

EDIT 11th August

I don't mind criticism or challenges, seriously I don't, as long as the tone is respectful. Compare the tone between the two commenters below, I much prefer the second.

Some attention has been directed to the last example, “She's her own flat in London", it is AWKWARD but that was by choice. I deliberately composed it that way to illustrate how the contraction she’s could mislead the reader into initially thinking “She is her own flat…”, which is obviously nonsensical. Although the word own emphasises possession, the contracted form is awkward on paper despite being perfectly grammatical. In speech and in everyday writing, she's got avoids this sore point.

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    No results found for "She's her own flat". The contraction I've a house {in London} was already becoming at least "dated" by the mid-1800s. Why do so many people think British English ceased to change after Dickens?
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Aug 10 at 22:22
  • @FumbleFingers perhaps you need to be reminded that Google Books is an unreliable source for speech.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Aug 10 at 22:35
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    “I’ve a house” - it would never occur to me to contract like this. “I’ve got a house OToH is very natural. (BrE). “I have a house” is also quite common.
    – gnasher729
    Commented Aug 11 at 6:52
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    But you're not a native Anglophone! And the chart in y first comment clearly shows how that particular abbreviated form has fallen out of favour over the past two centuries. I have to repeat: She's her own flat in London isn't remotely "colloquial" today - it's an affectation.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Aug 11 at 20:02
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    “Why do so many people think British English ceased to change after Dickens?” Because the only British novelist since Dickens that is popularly read in the US writes almost exclusively about wizards and monsters...
    – Michael Lorton
    Commented Aug 12 at 2:46

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