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When did this contraction begin, and why do you think it did?
Was it ever "willn't?" Or did "wo not" ever exist?
Wiktionary says:
Abbreviation of wollnot or woll + not, negations of archaic form of will.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology agrees:
XVII. contr. of wonnot, assim. of wol not
As to other forms, Etymonline only mentions wynnot:
first recorded mid-15c. as wynnot, later wonnot (1580s) before the modern form [won't] emerged 1660s.
Won’t actually has a pretty interesting and complex history. Ultimately it does come from a contraction of will and not, but it all happened in a rather roundabout way.
It all started off with the Old English verb willan/wyllan, meaning to will, wish, or want. Even in Old English it was used occasionally to denote a future intent. “Ic wille gan” could mean “I want to go” or “I will go”, depending on context.
Now, the thing about negatives in Old English is that they were often reduced:
na(w)ðer = nahwæðer = ne + hwæðer
neither = not + whethernæfre = ne + æfre
never = not + evernabbað = ne + habbað
haven’t = have + notWe nabbað naðor ne hlaf ne wæter.
We have neither bread nor water.
Not comes from naht via noht. Related to nawiht meaning naught, it originally meant in no way, but came to be used as an emphatic form of ne. Subsequently it became unstressed and supplanted ne altogether. This is an example of Jespersen’s Cycle.
All these things combined led to a new negative form of willan, wynnot. The past forms of willan began with wold-, which is where we get would. Under the influence of these forms and the related verb wol, wynnot became wonnot by the late 1500s.
Finally, the modern form won’t emerged by the 1660s as a result of reducing the final vowel in wonnot. It appears to be the first word so contracted; most of the other -n’t contractions we use today (can’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t, &c.) arose in the 1700s, modelled after won’t. In modern English, cannot is the only uncontracted -not compound that survives.
As for the other contractions such as -’ll and -’ve, their history is just as long, though perhaps slightly less convoluted. But that’s a story for a different question. ;)
Also, remember that spelling in Old English was less standardised than in modern English. There were often several equally valid ways to spell the same word, especially when you took different accents and dialects into account. So sometimes it’s difficult to get a good historical account of pronunciation and usage changes. Still, as far as I can tell, this is basically how it went down.
Source: The Online Etymology Dictionary.
Won't is simply a contraction of the words will not. They have the exact same meaning. Won't is more informal; if you're writing an essay, in most cases you're advised not to use any contractions. Beyond that, there's no reason not to choose whichever you like. More often when speaking, you'll hear won't. So if you're writing dialogue, you might use the contraction to make it sound more natural.
Contractions such as ‘won’t’ are found principally in speech and in informal writing, although there seems to be a growing trend for them to occur in formal writing as well.
Where the full form does occur in speech, it is often used for exaggerated emphasis. ‘I WILL NOT GO’ spoken slowly and deliberately shows greater determination than ‘I won’t go’ spoken softly.