The Lowly Apostrophe

[maytreefrannie]

The apostrophe is probably the most misused part of English - I mean why would they use this sign in a shop (and I've seen it) -

Bananas
Apple's
Potato's
Onions

I feel tempted to walk in and ask Apple's what? Apple's skin? Apple's price? Or - potato's going somewhere?

Or the hairdresser's sign not far from here:

Wanted:
Receptionist's Front Desk
Stylists Main Salon
Colourist's

One of these days I'm going to drag a front desk in there for the receptionist.


Yeah, I think I need to get a new hobby.

[Twinsane]

One of these days I'm going to drag a front desk in there for the receptionist.


Yeah, I think I need to get a new hobby.

No! That would be funny to see.

I will be very disappointed to lose the apostrophe (I've got friends that use a comma instead?). Even if I'm not 100% on my spelling and punctuation, I think it's another value we're losing and it sets off other written or spoken language issues for me.

I used to play a lot of online games and I often flamed by kids for using puctuation in my text either in game or on forums. It seems that if you use the proper spelling or any form of punctuation you're a snob or a noob.

Sadly, the language is changing with slang or text talk being used instead. You'll hear people saying (or singing in songs) words like arks instead of ask . I can understand that you want to economise wording for texting but why mii instead of me, or kk instead of ok (which I appreciate is slang anyway), todai, etc. I can't decipher some of the messages I receive via text or facebook and I've read homework that is full of text talk with no punctuation whatsoever.

[janeyo]

I think maybe you need a new hobby...

[OllieMartin]

Sadly, the language is changing with slang or text talk being used instead. You'll hear people saying (or singing in songs) words like arks instead of ask . I can understand that you want to economise wording for texting but why mii instead of me, or kk instead of ok (which I appreciate is slang anyway), todai, etc. I can't decipher some of the messages I receive via text or facebook and I've read homework that is full of text talk with no punctuation whatsoever.

You just made me cry

[Nicos]

I've read homework that is full of text talk with no punctuation whatsoever.

Better get that wooden ruler warmed up for thwacking a few knuckles then...hmmm..ya can't do that any more can you?

[Two_Sheds]

I'm not going to get into this conversation - you all already know I'm a pedant.

At school, I have a little boy who doesn't seem able to read the endings of words. He sees the first part and just guesses the ending. So he will pronounce both 'ended' and 'ending' as 'end', interchangeably.

I got a note from his father y'day, and it said "Joe explain his homework to me, and Joe explain his book".

So I'm on a loser there! It's down to sloppy pronunciation and lack of reading: people don't see how words should be spelt, so write them as they sound. Joe isn't even the worst example.

[Incy]

I'm just so grateful that my son's school are finally teaching him some punctuation! At primary I don't think the teachers knew any themselves and the letters/notes that came home were riddled with mistakes by the adults supposedly teaching there.
We have a constant battle about using the non-word 'innit' for example. It drives me insane!
I also discovered it's contagious! A good friens of mine who is French and works in a high quality sales environment used it the other day
Needless to say he was suitably reprimanded

[OllieMartin]

One thing we have to bear in mind is that language is fluid and dynamic.
I shared a house with a sociology student who pointed out that the purpose of language is merely to communicate a message. If the other person in a conversation understands what you're saying then it doesn't really matter what you say and you can feel free to invent words provided they translate clearly when deciphered.
With that in mind, when I used to teach fraud training I ask the delegates to, "check an example for fraudulation", when one of the candidates remarked, "that's a made-up word", I took pleasure in pointing out that ALL words are made up!

If our language consits of french, german, spanish, swedish, american (sadly), they why not allow it to include text speak and slang.
The fact is that slang words have been infiltrating common usage for years, and as each generation passes, so the next generation puts their slang into dictionaries.
Thus is the development of language.

[janeyo]

I often mark work from GCSE standard classes that have terrible written English and grammar and are barely legible! With big primary school type letters!
Gives me a headache trying to work it out!

[Caro]

Errrr.. I'm also a stickler for correct grammar and punctuation, but would like to point out I was educated in the mid-80s not the middle of the 1900s! (At least, I think it's 80s and 1900s, not 80's and 1900's - because should it not be '80s and you couldn't have '80's? )

In Scotland, we often use "amn't I", as in "I'm due to see you next week, amn't I?". I hold that that is perfectly correct. This is, I assume, where everyone not Scottish disagrees and says "aren't I"! But we don't say "I are seeing you next week" ...

There, that should put the cat amongst the pigeons!



Caro

[OllieMartin]

Errrr.. I'm also a stickler for correct grammar and punctuation, but would like to point out I was educated in the mid-80s not the middle of the 1900s! (At least, I think it's 80s and 1900s, not 80's and 1900's - because should it not be '80s and you couldn't have '80's? )

You are absolutely right, 80's is technically wrong, it should be '80s.
On facebook, when I post a garden photo I mark the date as (9th Oct '09) although technically it should be Oct' as well as '09)
You can have '80's as in "The '80's music was...", but the problem is that the number of apostrophe's starts to look unattractive. Such as "Sha'n't" I is technically the correct writing of "Shall I Not", but "Shan't" is accepted.

There are also a few misnomers in the language such as "do's and don'ts", which is the prefered way, rather than the ambiguous, confusing and/or ugly options of:
"dos and don'ts" or
"do's and don't's"

[SarzWix]

My kids get very tired of hearing me say "Does it belong to somebody, or are there missing letters?". Hopefully it's one form of punctuation that they will get right
There's one word that always trips me up, I'm not sure why, and that's gets I always put in an apostrophe get's and have to go back and correct it.

Overuse of exclamation marks, question marks, or full stops in thread titles, always get edited by me, because it makes the thread title run onto 2 lines on my tiny pooter

[HayleyB]

I'm forever correcting 1900's or suchlike when proofing our club magazine, apostrophes are the most misused punctuation in English.

[piskieinboots]

the one that I remember causing me issues when I was a wee un was:
it's and its
..used to make my head hurt

[zazen999]

It's on its way.

I type this many times each week [with the seed parcels] and every single time I check.....