BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Peace
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 09:41 PM

Lie, Lady, Lie
Lie across my big brass bed

(From an article by Diana Hacker)

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Peace
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 09:34 PM

A lie is what one says; a lay is what one gets.

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 06:09 PM

GUEST Bainbo said, inter alia:

Similar confusion over split infinitives. The folk lying down the laws on English grammar tried to make it follow the rules of Latin.

One of my favorite peeves is those who try to speak authoritatively about English grammar but clearly don't understand "lie" and "lay" and their various shifting forms.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: autolycus
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 06:37 AM

LTS,

You could always try the techniques that Seem to be working that I mentioned before to do with stopping the misuse of "begging the question".
Sometimes these situations benefit from some proactivity.

Auto.

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 06:04 AM

Walked past a shop selling curry's today.... kept walking. Whatever happened to the 'ies' rule?

It's not helped by Tony *Education, education, education* Blair using the word "incentivise" in a speech yesterday about getting people off benefits and into work.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 24 Jan 06 - 01:52 PM

apostrophe's are rubbish.

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Mr Red
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 08:07 AM

as my dear 'ole departed Gramma (put the apostrophe there if you dare) used to say

now boy "is that grammar, spelling or syntax you are tying to teach yer little 'ole Granny? Don't try to teach yer Granny to suck her teeth!"

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Mr Red
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 06:21 AM

Mr Happy - yer mother told you not to speak .......

if yer mouth'sfull

and anyway (or should it be any way?) you may stuff many spoons full (I hope they were silver) and many spoonfulls (one spoon) but you only have one mouth unless you are talking out of















the tops of your heads.

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 01:18 AM

BETTER GRAMMAR THAN GOD

Bruce Nesmith (copyright 2000 Why Tuque? Music)

I was driving in western Illinois
On a warm but not too hot late summer day
Beneath the electric wires I found
A farmer's roadside stand along the way
Fresh strawberries and melons
Looked about as quaint as you might guess
But wouldn't you know "melons" was spelled
M-e-l-o-n apostrophe s

And I said, plural nouns don't take an apostrophe,
Plural nouns don't take an apostrophe
Plural nouns don't take an apostrophe
Take it out, take it out, take it out

In the town a major store
Enticing customers from far and wide
A most eye-catching sign
To welcome you and beckon you inside
Year-end close-out deals
Just about impossible to resist
But they couldn't resist spelling
D-e-a-l apostrophe s

But I said, plural nouns don't take an apostrophe,
Plural nouns don't take an apostrophe
Plural nouns don't take an apostrophe
Take it out, take it out, take it out

The sisters of AO Pi
Are generous and always doing good
All of them love animals
They treat them just like their mothers would
And when they seek donations
They seek them with a certain sort of grace
But s-i-s-t-e-r-s
Did not seek the apostrophe they placed

And I said, plural nouns don't take an apostrophe,
Plural nouns don't take an apostrophe
Plural nouns don't take an apostrophe
Take it out, take it out, take it out

My earthly life was over
I finally shuffled off this mortal coil
I arrived in paradise
To rest forever from my earthly toil
At the entrance were directions
To various celestial offices
God's of course and Jesus'
And the twelve disciple apostrophe s
And I said -
        (spoken) I started to say my thing about plural nouns and then something popped into my head. I don't know why. Something about the famous Puritan preacher Jonathon Edwards' sermon about "sinners in the hands of an angry God". That's not really my theology. I'm more of a universalist myself but I'm enough of a universalist to think that possibly Jonathon Edwards had it right. And when I get to heaven God will dangle me like a loathsome spider over the flame and say, "Say it, Grammar Boy. Say it." So I decided not to say it. Discretion is the better part of valour.

Oh what a beautiful city.
Oh what a beautiful city
Oh what a beautiful city
Twelve gate apostrophe s to the city, my lord.

From the CD "Mouth Full of Mustard" by Bruce Nesmith, Cedar Rapids, Iowa ([e-mail])

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 20 Jan 06 - 02:19 PM

How many skins do you have? ;o)

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Mr Happy
Date: 20 Jan 06 - 12:18 PM

........& when you've had a pint or too many of the wobbly juice, its a skinful.

what would several be?


skinfuls or skinsful?

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 11:03 PM

The plural of "mongoose" is "mongooses".
And for all the baseball fans, it's not RBI's, nor RBIs; it's simply RBI.

And the only (Oh crap! I was doing so well until I started this sentence with a conjunction.) major league announcer who uses RBI correctly is Jon Miller.

For the non-baseball literate, RBI is the abbreviation for Runs Batted In.

Seamus

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Mr Happy
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 09:32 PM

ps

anagram of mother in law= woman hitler!

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Mr Happy
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 09:30 PM

mother in laws/mothers in law

spoonfuls/spoonsfull


but what about mouthfuls?

'mouthsfull'?

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Peace
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 10:13 AM

'Which phrase is more correct:

"no, you're not"

or

"no, you aren't."'



NOT IN THIS LIFE!

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Snuffy
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 09:48 AM

"no, yow'm ent"

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 05:01 PM

who really cares?????   Punctuation and rules can be very boring

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: autolycus
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 04:54 PM

Yes

Auto

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 04:49 PM

Which phrase is more correct:

"no, you're not"

or

"no, you aren't."

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: leftydee
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 02:34 PM

Plural's don't get apostrophe's? Well, that's new's to me! Shuck's, I've been doing it wrong all these year's

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Peace
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 01:23 PM

Me 2.

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 11:57 AM

I'm grateful few Catters employ phone-text here, r u 2?

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Mr Red
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 08:00 AM

now do you use ditto or "? and when.

and when do you decide to use "etc" or "&co"

and - never mind here comes the boss..............

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: gnu
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 07:24 AM

Dittos.

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: autolycus
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 05:59 AM

Where punctuation should matter is over comprehensibility.

In the boys trousers one, context might help, and so does correct,appropriate punctuation.

There is a story I can't lay my hands on about someone whose (not 'who's), whose life was saved because a Queen moved or added a comma to an instruction from the king.

These debates will ever go on because of the inevitable yin/yang tension between the need for some rules (to aid comprehensibility) on the one hand, and the stark fact that language changes (because people are creative, there are are new meanings discovered for which new forms are required).

I'm fighting a marginally successful campaign to oppose the misuse of "that begs the question of.......", where the speaker actually MEANS "that raises the ques........". It's working, by showing that it is a misuse (If I say 'Parallel lines will never meet because they are parallel',THAT'S 'begging the question'),partly by pointing out better formulations e.g.'raises the question', and partly by sarcasm,"I thought you lot were hedgemecated".
I mean working in that some of the offenders seem to have given up misusing "begs the ques....". Including some of BBC 5 Live.

You can raise the hads sequence in the following context.
The editor asks two apprentice printers to come up with alternative fonts for'had had'(which you'll have to imagine cos of my technophobia). One of the apprentices is Hadley , Had to his friends.
"Jim, where Had had had 'had had',had had 'had had'. Had's 'had had' had had the editor's approval. I've used apostrophes and full stop - er - for -er- clarity.

Amos, please forgive me for earlier signings-off as A.

Auto.

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 09:30 PM

How apropos! This looks like an exciting read:

The Times, January 14, 2006

I say potatoes and you say potato's

Should we care about aberrant apostrophes and other solecisms? Not according to one expert. But just wait for the outraged letters in green ink

HOW LANGUAGE WORKS
by David Crystal
Penguin, £22; 512pp
Reviewed by John Humphrys

Click to see the review

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Peace
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 08:41 PM

"There are, apparently, two stories on the name of the county. The two may or may not be related. One story has it that the county is named for a Swedish sea captain, John (or Jonas) Bronck, who settled in the area in 1639 and established a farm. The other story has it that the area that encompasses Bronx County was a farm owned by the Bronck family. Many of the wealthy of Manhattan would come to visit their friends who owned the farm, and would simply say that they were going to the Broncks'. If that is true, then the name most certainly stuck."

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Burke
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 08:36 PM

Is The Bronx misspelled then? I understand it was named for the family who lived there and people would say, "We're going to the Bronx' [homestead]"

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 02:55 PM

Shouldn't you be Murray on Salt Spring? ;o)

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: GUEST,Murray on Saltspring
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 02:14 PM

John o' Groats is the usual spelling I think [from the fellow who built a house there in the 16th century, a Dutchman called Jan de Groot]. As for cafeteria, it's an American Spanish word [accent on the i] in its own right, so plural = cafeterias.

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 01:39 PM

artbrooks

Yea I was being ironic    but surely the words will inform you

opera is a collection of compositions that would rightly in the singular be called "OPUS" - common usage allows us to refer to Operas because we treat an Opera as a single entity - indivisible. Datas will follow - in time. And criterions are close behind. It is a simplification of the language that is being complicated in other directions by the minute with fashion, commerce and mischief.

I just wondered if cafeteria was similarly from the Latin or a portmanteau word from an era (is a singular word similarly to how data has become?) I know little about.

The whole point about live languages is that no one has control. eg The word gay has over the years taken on a lascivious meaning in a heterosexual sense, and been so passe it has lost all oumph several times. Which is why is was adopted by the homosexual community.

Who refers to assertive flirty widowed women as "brisk" these days? Yet brisk whad a very specific meaning when the song about the "brisk young widow and the sooty colier" was in vogue.

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Peace
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 10:03 AM

I read somewhere many moons bach that the President (or CEO) of the Lands' End company said the apostrophe placement was a mistake (as was noted above also) and that the company had become quite established before it was brought to their attention. They decided to leave it as it was and still is.

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Leadfingers
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 09:12 AM

And 100 !!

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Leadfingers
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 09:11 AM

99 Ted ??

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: HuwG
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 05:09 AM

For the American cousins:

The phrase, "Greengrocer's apostrophe", derives from the hastily chalked boards or hand-written cards on tables of produce inside shops or on the pavement [sidewalk] outside, or at market stalls, advertising such things as, "Potatoe's - 15p / lb" and "Carrot's - 30p / lb"

You could club them over the head with Chamber's "Modern English Usage", and they'd still do it.

...

The "double negative". The best take on this I ever saw was in Alan Bleasdale's TV series, "Boys from the blackstuff". Yosser Hughes (played by Bernard Hill) is facing a tribunal from the Department of Employment.

Hughes: I didn't do no work for him.
Adjudicator: That's a double negative.
Hughes: So ? There's two of you, aren't there ?

...

The Lands End / Land's End debate; how about the other end of Britain. Is it "John o' Groats" or "John o' Groat's" ? I suspect the latter, but the two road atlases I possess each give a different version.

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: artbrooks
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 04:14 PM

According to the Lands' End website, I started making lists of possible company names and settled on Lands' End. It had a romantic ring to it, and conjured visions of a point to depart from on a perilous voyage.

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 12:45 PM

Here's another curiosity for you:

In England, in Corwall, at the extreme tip of the peninsula, there's a place called Land's End -- at least that's how the Ordnance Survey punctuates it. However, Cornwall 365, another "official"-looking site, omits the apostrophe, and so does the "official" signpost – see the photo at the bottom of the page.

In America, there's a popular mail-order clothing company called Lands' End, with headquarters in Dodgeville, Wisconsin. According to Wikipedia, "Lands' End was started as a sailboat equipment company in 1963 in Chicago, Illinois.... The company is named from its sailboat heritage, after Land's End [Cornwall], but the misplaced apostrophe in the company name was a typographical error that the founders elected to keep, as promotional materials had already been printed."

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Paul Burke
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 04:11 AM

PK(F): theat was one of the points I was making. If you needed to specify the number of boys, it would either be done by context, or you'd be better off with a different construction.

Double negatives: the norm in English until the blasted grammarians got hold of it (again).

Edi beo thu hevene quene folkes froure and engles blis.
Moder unwemmed and maiden clene swich in world non other nis.

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 04:00 PM

Good guess, Peace. lol

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 03:26 PM

The Att'y Gen likely took the name Meese when he married. Prior to that his name had been Edwin Moose. (I don't know if that is historically accurate--just guessin' here.)

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 03:17 PM

That, of course, should be DEscent...

Hazarding an answer to my own question, my guess would be that the name is German in origin and originally sported an umlaut.

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 03:06 PM

Jus' ruminatin' here. Remember Edwin Meese? Considering that many surnames from antiquity have been given in response to exploits, hereditary discent, location, occupation or personal attributes, among others, how do you suppose the Meese family got its name?

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 02:20 PM

Yeah. Meese. "Look at the antlers on them meese."

Recall when they tried to get that political thing done about the largest member of the deer family? That's right: The Meese Lake Accord.

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: artbrooks
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 02:14 PM

Or is that meese?

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 02:12 PM

. . . but we got mooses though.

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 02:04 PM

And, BTW, we don't got no antelopes in our urinals, either.

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 01:48 PM

Since when don't they got no antelopes in the Urals!

Subject: RE: BS: Negatives don't require doubling!
From: GUEST,brackenrigg
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 01:47 PM

"There aint' not antelopes in the Ural's"
Shall we start another thread regarding double negatives?

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 09:28 PM

I'd been pointing out for ages to the window staff at Wendy's that the sign meant they accepted checks. They assured me that they didn't. I think the point has been made and argued to death now, considering the context.

Subject: RE: BS: Plurals don't require apostrophes!
From: Hrothgar
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 02:25 AM

The plural of banjo is "too many".

The sopermarket sign that annoys me (and I suppose unreasonably, in this day and age) is the one that says "x items or less". Any pedant can tell them it should be "x items or fewer".