[William Tell]

sourcery said: "Told you I was pedant. "

How can one justify counting a contraction of two words as being still two words and yet count compounding of two words as just one word; i.e. "cannot"? A count of letters would seem to justify just the reverse.

[sourcery]

That’s why Cambridge counts “can’t” as one word. In general, if the contraction can be expanded to a single word, then it’s a single word.