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Is there a contraction for "I was"?

There are contractions for "I am" (I'm), "I will" (I'll), "I have" (I've), "I would" (I'd), and yet the simple past tense seems conspicuously missing. Why is that? Does that reasoning apply to "I did" and "I had" as well?

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    FWIW, I can't see what is wrong with asking if there is an abbreviation for "I was". – GreenAsJade Dec 4 '15 at 9:57
  • FWIW, I can't see what is wrong with asking if there is an abbreviation for "I helped". FWIW, I can't see what is wrong with asking if there is an abbreviation for "an excavator". FWIW, I can't see what is wrong with asking if there is an abbreviation for "orange cat". FWIW, I can't see what is wrong with asking if there is an abbreviation for "green as jade". – RegDwigнt♦ Dec 4 '15 at 10:02
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    Your comparisons are disingenuous. There is an abbreviation for "I am" and "I will" so it follows that there might be one for "I was". The same can't be said for any of the examples you gave. The abbreviation for GreenAsJade most commonly used is GaJ. Cheers, GaJ. – GreenAsJade Dec 4 '15 at 13:18
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    @GreenAsJade There's nothing at all wrong with asking ... a dictionary. – MetaEd Dec 4 '15 at 23:40
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    @MετάEd I didn't question whether there was something wrong with asking a ... dictionary. I do question what is wrong with exploring in ELU an interesting aspect of abbreviation of the verb to be. You must be much cleverer than I am, I can see that, because I don't know how to ask a dictionary this question. CDO, one of the references in the "on hold notice" does not offer abbreviations of "be". Neither does dictionary.com appear to. Googling the topic is particularly challenging. Could you share how you would research this one? Point to an easy answer? – GreenAsJade Dec 5 '15 at 3:25
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There is no natural/common abbreviation of "I was".

A person speaking with extreme slang, and an affected accent, might say "I's garn down town when I saw dis babe", but usage would be rare.

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    Isn't I's slang for 'I am' rather than 'I was'? – Edwin Ashworth Dec 4 '15 at 9:34
  • Can you give a sentence where it makes sense that way? I suspect that this will depend very much on local dialect. I could imitate a certain accent and say the sentence I gave to anyone I know locally, and they would know it means "I was going to town when I saw this lady". That said, the kind of person that speaks that way is reasonably rare. I would stand by by initial sentence, which is that there isn't a common normal use abbreviation. – GreenAsJade Dec 4 '15 at 9:38
  • 'Don't have ta curse the ground I's walkin' onforfear ofsteppin' in harm's way.' {lyrics from an article on this webpage}. ''Fore I realize, I's walkin' and talkin' through recent events, startin' with my first retreat, where we finds ...' And 'I's a playa, I's a mack, I love getting at these ladies.' Of course, tenses are so mangled it's hard to be certain. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 4 '15 at 17:26
  • Yeah - good ones! As you suggest, I think there are examples of I am and I was in there :) And kind of in line with my speculation: this usage is quite regional (negro American). I would be hard pressed to find writing of the example I gave, because indigenous local slang is rarely if ever written down. – GreenAsJade Dec 4 '15 at 21:59

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