Good points.  I admit my initial post was written in haste, in response to
two anti-contractionists.  I have already amended my position to: use
contractions whenever they sound more natural -- and since that is very,
very often the case, one should always review one's labels and actively
seek out places where contractions can be so used.

As for whether a contraction ban amounts to the same level of
Fowlerian "superstition" as those against split infinitives, terminal
prepositions, initial conjunctions, etc., I would propose it is a matter of
degree rather than of kind.  Twisting a sentence out of shape to avoid
ending with a preposition creates a much more unnatural construction -- and
is thus a much greater sin -- than simply spelling out "do not."  On the
other hand, an experiment label that says "Let us see what happens when we
mix the solutions" does, in my opinion, cross over into Unnecessarily
Stilted territory.

(And let us not forget, as I hinted before, that contractions reduce both
word count and character count without sacrificing meaning -- about as
close to an unalloyed plus as one finds in the label-writing world.)

You ask:

>I would debate, however, the assumption that an exhibit label needs to be
>something that can be read aloud comfortably (as distinguished from text
that
>doesn't need to be read aloud comfortably, apparently).  Where did that
rule
>come from?  What is the practical rationale?  It begins to sound like a
>superstition to me.

I am on the road and away from my references at the moment, but I believe
something along these lines is mentioned in Serrell's book (in the appendix
on 14 Helpful Research Findings, if I am not mistaken).  I seem to remember
Rand's Fish Tales making similar points.  And it has been repeated at every
workshop or other writing session I can recall.

-- Eugene Dillenburg

P.S.: On the digression of "it's" vs. "its," I believe it's a simple matter
of the exception proving the rule.  As children we are constantly
told "apostrophe plus S equals possessive."  So it only makes sense that
the possessive of "it" should be "it's."  It's not, of course.  But this
sort of honest mistake warrants a gentle reminder, and not the sort of
tirades I have witnessed.  (In preson, I mean; not on this list.)
Misapplications of apostrophe-S in non-possessive situations are less
forgiveable.  (Years ago, Dave Barry wrote that the purpose of an
apostrophe is to alert the reader that an "S" is coming next.)

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