apostrophes

MASH said:
Apostrophes don't matter, some say. Insisting on their correct usage is "pedantic". (tip . look up pedantic in a dictionary. being correct is NOT pedantic)

Anyway, so you say. If I owe you £1000 I'll just pay you £10.00 and you'd be an obsessively pedantic arse for correcting my punctuation would you?

You'd sail 34.5 degrees instead of 345 would you, or vv?

Right...

It is neither impressive, clever nor cool to be incorrect (ie wrong) or sloppy, nor to defend being wrong. The glorification of mediocrity is one of the least impressive aspects of our society and wallowing in illiteracy, as a large proportion of our population does is equally so.
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PMSL :D:D
 
Yes. Middle of night when I wrote it. Woke up and what was the first thing I thought? Apostrophe! But glad you are policing this important issue. Keep up the good work.
 
This is much nicer than some other threads, it has the benefits of offering education. Sadly it is getting so long no-one will read it and some important messages will be lost. I can see the advantage of a paid editor to take the good and sensible from our collective scripts.

I too have Gowers' Plain Words' (1955 edition). I confess I am guilty of not following the advise.

But I liked the comment about being humble when you are wrong - I'll try to remember

Jonathan
 
nigelmercier said:
It wasn't so much a criticism as a demonstration of the exception to the possessive.
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Who said I thought you were being critical. The very idea! You grammarians are so useful to society that surely no-one could do anything except welcome your helpful interjections.
 
Neeves said:
This is much nicer than some other threads, it has the benefits of offering education. Sadly it is getting so long no-one will read it and some important messages will be lost. I can see the advantage of a paid editor to take the good and sensible from our collective scripts.

I too have Gowers' Plain Words' (1955 edition). I confess I am guilty of not following the advise.

But I liked the comment about being humble when you are wrong - I'll try to remember

Jonathan
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I've had some laughs reading some comments on this thread. Not sure if some posts are wind up's though. I'm sure another thread will appear regarding hyphens, colons or exclamation marks. :D
 
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Neeves said:
This is much nicer than some other threads, it has the benefits of offering education. Sadly it is getting so long no-one will read it and some important messages will be lost. I can see the advantage of a paid editor to take the good and sensible from our collective scripts.

I too have Gowers' Plain Words' (1955 edition). I confess I am guilty of not following the advise.

But I liked the comment about being humble when you are wrong - I'll try to remember

Jonathan
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When contributing to a thread like this, you have to be ultra careful about your grammar like not using advise when you mean advice.
It's all very light hearted - at least to me - although I do think that correct use of grammar is important. (I'm now wondering whether it is acceptable to use hyphens - should I have used brackets (or parentheses). Eek!
 
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ghostlymoron said:
Not wishing to hijack the nut's and bolt's thread, are there any circumstances where the pedants amongst us would use inappropriate apostrophes. How about the plural of GPS? GPSs looks wrong although it's correct. GPS's looks right when it is wrong.
Next, 'fewer' or 'less'?
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I have not read all the threads - I am not that sad!!!
However, I am not so sure that "GPS's " as used in the above comment is actually wrong.
GPS is an abreviation so the use of the apostrophe is not actually incorrect.
So perhaps an english teacher amongst us can comment.
 
Apologies if it has already been mentioned (it IS rather a long thread now!), but I have to say that one thing that tends to make long threads that bit more tedious is having to read the odd post with poor grammar and / or spelling more than once until the meaning becomes clear. Even if most mistakes are easily understood, it doesn't necessarily mean it has no negative impact. My car would work acceptably well if it was covered in dents, but I wouldn't want to buy one like that.
 
Daydream believer said:
I have not read all the threads - I am not that sad!!!
However, I am not so sure that "GPS's " as used in the above comment is actually wrong.
GPS is an abreviation so the use of the apostrophe is not actually incorrect.
So perhaps an english teacher amongst us can comment.
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If you can't be bothered to read all the threads, why do you think that someone should be bothered to explain to you personally what's wrong with GPS's?
 
NormanS said:
If you can't be bothered to read all the threads, why do you think that someone should be bothered to explain to you personally what's wrong with GPS's?
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Did you not read my post #58 where I argued that GPS's, GPSs and GPSes are all fine according to what might be defined as "educated" style?
 
Avocet said:
Apologies if it has already been mentioned (it IS rather a long thread now!), but I have to say that one thing that tends to make long threads that bit more tedious is having to read the odd post with poor grammar and / or spelling more than once until the meaning becomes clear. Even if most mistakes are easily understood, it doesn't necessarily mean it has no negative impact. My car would work acceptably well if it was covered in dents, but I wouldn't want to buy one like that.
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You poor, sad soul.
 
laika said:
Did you not read my post #58 where I argued that GPS's, GPSs and GPSes are all fine according to what might be defined as "educated" style?
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Sorry, but I missed thread 58. I lost it when James Bond had to save the world by sorting a nuclear bomb in thread 51.
But thanks - you have confirmed that I have correctly remembered some of my grammar school training from 53 years ago.
An apostrophe after an abreviation is correct. Bit embarrassing for the OP would you not say?:)
 
Daydream believer said:
Sorry, but I missed thread 58. I lost it when James Bond had to save the world by sorting a nuclear bomb in thread 51.
But thanks - you have confirmed that I have correctly remembered some of my grammar school training from 53 years ago.
An apostrophe after an abreviation is correct. Bit embarrassing for the OP would you not say?:)
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GPS wasn't invented when I was at school. I must confess I'd never heard of the rule relating to plurals of abbreviations.
Also, (deliberately starting sentence with a preposition) Daydream, please note that 'abbreviation' has a double 'b'. (now who's embarrassed)?
 
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ghostlymoron said:
GPS wasn't invented when I was at school. I must confess I'd never heard of the rule relating to plurals of abbreviations.
Also, (deliberately starting sentence with a preposition) Daydream, please note that there are 'abbreviation' has a double 'b'. (now who's embarrassed)?
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Yes!! but I did not start this d...d thread. The OP did; so he is the one who needed to be word perfect


& while we are at it -- who taught you english with " please note that there are 'abbreviation' has a double 'b'. (now who's embarrassed)?"

People in glass houses... etc etc!!!

My excuse is that I am old so I am entitled to a bit of poetic licence.
Old people are allowed to do things without comment from others which they could not when young.
for example:-
I am sure many have an old granny who:-
cheats at draughts
farts quite openly without apology
pushes in queues
makes rude poined comments about others
& absolutely fails to be embarrassed
etc etc
 
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