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Apostrophe Watch

 
  

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grant
19:11 / 06.12.05
WTF? When is it right to pluralise with an apostrophe?


When you're referring to a letter, or in this case a whole word, as an object rather than using it as a signifier.

I agree, though, that it looks *wrong* in the case of "don't's."
 
 
Quantum
11:03 / 07.12.05
Finished Beats Loots and Thieves now, meh.
"by tragic historical coincidence a period of abysmal undereducating in literacy has coincided with this global explosion in self-publishing. Thus people who don't konow their apostrophe fron their elbow are positively invited to disseminate their writings to anyone on the planet stupid enough to double-click and scroll."
Fair point Ms. Truss.
 
 
Smoothly
11:19 / 07.12.05
Yeah, you’d have to be stupid to read something written by a person who doesn’t understand apostrophes. And it’s truly outrageous that these poor, undereducated illiterates are invited (positively invited !) to publish things on the web.
 
 
Quantum
12:13 / 07.12.05
She is an irritating so-and-so for sure, but it's true the UK failed to teach grammar for twenty years, and now anyone can throw words onto the net. I think the response is to give less of a shit about it personally but she's a 'stickler'.

Those "don't's" really bug me though. It looks wrong but "dos and don'ts" looks wrong too. I'd probably end up writing "do's and do nots" or something ugly.
 
 
Smoothly
14:22 / 07.12.05
Seems odd to me to take pride in being a ‘stickler’ about this. Particularly given that the English language has profited so much from users’ flexibility towards it.

Looking around a bit, it seems that Dos and Don’ts is pretty standard. The Guardian style guide prescribes that construction. Either way, I’d go one or the other rather than a mixture of the two.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:26 / 07.12.05
Seems odd to me to take pride in being a ‘stickler’ about this. Particularly given that the English language has profited so much from users’ flexibility towards it.

What, bad use of the apostrophe? It's not exactly James Joyce.
 
 
Smoothly
14:41 / 07.12.05
I meant English grammar generally, which is what I believe LT prides herself on being a stickler about.
 
 
Ganesh
20:44 / 19.12.05
S'hudder...
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
21:22 / 19.12.05
grant has put in for an amendment to "loas" but I think it should be Loa (or Lwa). No?
 
 
Ganesh
21:28 / 19.12.05
Not sure. All I know is it isn't "loas's".
 
 
Ganesh
15:02 / 13.02.06
This one, please.
 
 
The Falcon
16:02 / 13.02.06
On it.
 
 
Seth
16:51 / 13.02.06
I always make this mistake. I did in that thread, in fact.
 
 
Shrug
09:27 / 14.02.06
Does Valentine's Day not contain an apostrophe then?
 
 
Ganesh
09:59 / 14.02.06
I think it's one of those weird situations where the name's become so familiar in itself that the ownership aspect's been diluted. I always wonder the same thing about St John's/Johns Wood, which doesn't seem to have an apostrophe on (at least some) maps...
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
11:24 / 14.02.06
Valentine is a lot like St Christma in that respect.

I'd say there should be one. But I hate Valentine's Day anyway, so I don't really care.
 
 
Shrug
22:41 / 15.02.06
Good, good. Still seems a bit wrong though.
 
 
Ganesh
22:45 / 15.02.06
Probably is. Jumps out a bit less than other misplaced apostrophes, though. To me, anyway.
 
 
Mourne Kransky
23:15 / 15.02.06
(St) Valentine's Day. Listen to Papa Xoc and he'll steer you right. Copy and paste if you need to.
 
 
Shrug
23:30 / 15.02.06
Since you're here and slightly off-topic what about the full-stop?
It isn't more correctly St(.) Valentine's Day, is it?
(.) Eminently dropable?
Can of worms, this is....
 
 
Ganesh
23:33 / 15.02.06
Doesn't the full stop indicate missing letters? So no full stop in "St".
 
 
Shrug
23:42 / 15.02.06
Ah so it'd be "Turn left along St Valentine's St.".
This is all very informative. Geddit, goddit, good.
 
 
Ganesh
23:47 / 15.02.06
I'm not sure "Street" would be abbreviated to "St." either - for the same reasons. But it's one of those areas I remember only dimly. Best consult the Trusster.
 
 
Mourne Kransky
23:55 / 15.02.06
Street Valentine was altogether nastier and messier than Saint Valentine. You don't want to go there. St. Valentine might possibly be an anally retentive contraction of either, though perhaps archaic. Think Mr or Dr - how often do you full stop them?
 
 
Shrug
23:57 / 15.02.06
Oh yeah, we were always taught possibly erroneously "Street=St." although I'm not sure about "Saint=St.".
However my grammar, particularly punctuation, has become or perhaps always was reasonably worrisome so ...*shrugs*.
 
 
Shrug
00:00 / 16.02.06
And sorry, yes, definitely being fixatedly anally retentive on this one.
 
 
■
06:44 / 16.02.06
It's one of those things where technology has changed the conventions. Yes, it is strictly correct to stick a point after abbreviations (for both saint and street) yet it tends to break the flow of the sentence in typewritten text more obviously than it does in handwritten text, so it's usually fine to omit it. Valentine's Day is right, but if you're talking about the cards and people they can be Valentines (no apos). So there's even a case for saying that it could even be Valentines' dinners - a dinner for lots of Valentines, not a dinner for St Valentine.
 
 
sleazenation
07:03 / 16.02.06
It was my understanding that abbreviations that end with the same letter as they would if they were written out fully do not require a full stop.

Thus Dr, St and St would not require a full stop...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
07:32 / 16.02.06
Fowler - the original, none of that filthy modern muck - on periods in abbreviations:

Abbreviations are puzzling, but to puzzle is not their purpose, and everything that helps the reader to guess their meaning is a gain. One such help is to let him know when the first and last letters of the abbreviation are also those of the full word, which can be done by not using the period, but writing wt (not wt.) for weight, Bp (not Bp. for bishop, Mr (not Mr.)... (a set of abbreviations too beautiful even to gaze at follow, culminating in h.w., but ht wt, for hit wicket).

Hope this helps.
 
 
■
07:50 / 16.02.06
Well I never. That's a new rule to me. Thanks.
 
 
Shrug
12:41 / 16.02.06
Hmm, that does help. Yes, thank you.
 
 
sleazenation
21:13 / 17.02.06
I've noticed that Police Constable is increasingly being abbreviated to Pc rather than PC - is this a new phenomanon or just something that i have been previously unaware of...
 
 
Axolotl
08:27 / 18.02.06
On the period after abbreviations thing I read that on this side of the Atlantic we don't put a period where the last letter of the word is the last letter of the abbreviation, but in the US (he says breaking the rule under discussion) you should.
However I don't have a source on that, so may just be talking out of my hat.
 
 
Mourne Kransky
11:09 / 18.02.06
Previous page, Smoothly: That's not an Oxford comma, is it?

I thought the Oxford comma wasn't quite as used by Quantum: a comma between the second and third items in a list. Isn't the point of the Oxford comma that there's already an and there so non-Oxford & commaless people see no need for the comma.

Ordinary - Quantum, Smoothly and Xoc.
Oxford - Quantum, Smoothly, and Xoc.
Boyz Magazine - Phwoarrrrr!
 
 
grant
01:07 / 19.02.06
As far as I know, in the US, we always give periods to our misters and doctors.
 
  

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