Members nat whilk II Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 There are more important issues on everyone's minds, I'm sure. But if you don't really know which of below are correct, then may I humbly recommend to your attention the Wikipedia article I've quoted and cited below. a) ...more important issues on everyone's mindsb) ...more important issues on everyones mind'sc) ...more important issues on everyone's mind'sd) ...more important issues on everyones minds from this Wiki entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe The apostrophe ( ' , or Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members coyote-1 Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 Yes indeed, here we are!!! At St.Alphonzo's Pancake Breakfastwhere I stole the magarineand wheedled on the bingo cards in lieu of the latrine I saw a handsome parish ladymake her entrance like a queenshe was totally in chenille and her old man was a Marine As she abused the sausage pattyand said "Why don't you treat me mean?! ;)" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members the stranger Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 Funny you should mention that... I find myself using them when I want to emphasize a word...they seem 'cleaner' than quotation marks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted June 20, 2007 Author Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 Coyote - I think you wandered into the wrong wing of the ward... nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members the stranger Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 [visualize strange guy in a hospital gown with full rear view asscrack looking dazed and confused] Which wing is this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 I t'hank y'ou for you're ca'ring of the Eng'lish la'nguage. Youv'e pro'vided a' fan'tastic ser'vice and hel'ped you're fel'low hum'an. St'amp Ou't Il'literac'y!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gus Lozada Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 I guess I can use them without problems ... Maybe because I actually studied English... and you guys happen to speak it as as your native language. I also hate when people use " you're " instead of "your" and other similar errors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members spokenward Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 I looked to see how the Wikipedia entry handled the most cumbersome part of this convention. It took them two rules and they fought it to a draw. within Non-English names For possessive plurals of words ending in silent x or s, the few authorities that address the issue at all call for an added s, and require that the apostrophe precede the s: The Loucheux's homeland is in the Yukon; Compare the two Dumas's literary achievements. As usual in punctuation, the best advice is to respect soundly established practice, and beyond that to strive for simplicity, logic, and especially consistency. Possessive forms of nouns ending in s The special case of non-English names ending in silent s, z, or x (e.g. Descartes) is dealt with above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members the stranger Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 I t'hank y'ou for you're ca'ring of the Eng'lish la'nguage. Youv'e pro'vided a' fan'tastic ser'vice and hel'ped you're fel'low hum'an. St'amp Ou't Il'literac'y!!! Thats' 'funny'! Actually its' not. Itll' bE sOmE nEw 'tReNd'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members the stranger Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 ... Maybe because I actually studied English... and you guys happen to speak it as as your native language. I still feel bad about calling you a 'bastard'. That was way back in the MP days. It was some humorous thread about your heritage and I called you a 'poor bastard", which wasn't meant in a derogatory way. It didn't translate well and you took offense. I call all my friends bastards, but of course this is a cultural difference. Completely unrelated, but I felt like expressing it. Terry D. ( I hope he sees this. ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted June 20, 2007 Author Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 I still feel bad about calling you a 'bastard'. That was way back in the MP days. It was some humorous thread about your heritage and I called you a 'poor bastard", which wasn't meant in a derogatory way. It didn't translate well and you took offense. I call all my friends bastards, but of course this is a cultural difference. Completely unrelated, but I felt like expressing it. Terry D. ( I hope he sees this. ) Hey, dang it, it's "poor bastard", NOT 'poor bastard". Cain'tcha even cuss right??? nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members the stranger Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 [whistles innocently] Wiki rules, btw. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jon Doe Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 Does that apply in minor keys as well? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Geoff Grace Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 Or -- for instance, when speaking of the decade of the seventies -- it's the '70s, not the 70's. Best, Geoff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members the stranger Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 Yeah. The pinnacle of human civilization deserves more grammatical respect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cry Logic Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 Yes indeed, here we are!!! At St.Alphonzo's Pancake Breakfast where I stole the magarine and wheedled on the bingo cards in lieu of the latrine I saw a handsome parish lady make her entrance like a queen she was totally in chenille and her old man was a Marine As she abused the sausage patty and said "Why don't you treat me mean?! ;)" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cry Logic Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 I've always been operated the assumption that, to indicate the possesive, the apostrophe comes after the s on the possessive word. So the correct way to write the above line would be:"more important issues on everyones' minds" As opposed to using the apostrophe for abbreviation as in:"everyone's going to the party"( abbreviation of "everyone is" ) Before the s for abreviation After the s for possession. Maybe they teach it different in the USA?Australian spellings are different to USA spellings.For example we're taught to spell color as colour. My Australian spell checker in FireFox identifies color as a wrong spelling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members the stranger Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 [head explodes] :blam: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted June 20, 2007 Author Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 I've always been under the assumption that, to indicate the possesive,the apostrophe comes after the s on the possesive word.So the correct way to write the above line would be:...more important issues on everyones' mindsMaybe they teach it different in Australia?Australian spellings are different to USA spellings. Dunno about Australian, but in the USA and GB, it's the apostrophe and then the s. The exception being when the word itself ends in s, like "Mrs. Jones' hat". If the spoken form sounds out two "s" sounds, then you might add apostrophe and the s to even a word that ends in s, like "the boss's shoes". So it would be "....everyone's minds" since "everyone" is the basic word before the possessive is indicated. But hey, maybe I've made an error - I think it should be "everyone's MIND", not "minds"....I'll look that sucker up. nat whilk ii These examples come from the Wikipedia article - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Extreme Mixing Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 Nat, Glad that you caught your own mistake. Everyone's mind. We only get one...most of us anyway. Steve Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wztonz Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 There is a major latency issue with using apostrophe vz quotation marks, the former yielding approximately 13.87635 times more latency than the latter!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cry Logic Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 Related to this apostrophe quest is the urgent need to stop people writing "should of" instead of "should've". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 There are more important issues on everyone's minds, I'm sure. But if you don't really know which of below are correct, then may I humbly recommend to your attention the Wikipedia article I've quoted and cited below. a) ...more important issues on everyone's mindsb) ...more important issues on everyones mind'sc) ...more important issues on everyone's mind'sd) ...more important issues on everyones minds from this Wiki entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe The apostrophe ( ' , or Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted June 20, 2007 Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 Thats' 'funny'! Actually its' not. Itll' bE sOmE nEw 'tReNd'. Yea'h, unf'ortunate'ly, your'e prob'ab'ly righ't... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted June 20, 2007 Author Members Share Posted June 20, 2007 , making all kinds of transposition, homophonic mischoice, punctuation, and other sorts of should-know-better errata. (Of course, spell check is almost as much a blessing as a curse, and the FireFox spellchecker's vocab is apparently not nearly as broad as my passion for less-traveled constructions... a third to half of the red underlines in my posts when I'm editing are perfectly valid spellings and constructions which I then feel compelled to look up.)Blame it on the WWW. Oh, typos and grammar and all such errors don't matter that much in web chatter. I tend to read stuff like BBS posts in half speed-reading mode anyway, so I probably don't even notice most of the mistake's. (hahaha) The apostrophe case in point is one I see with increasing frequency in places like printed advertising, instruction manuals, letters to the editor, flyers from the high school - places where you would think people would at least care that their writing was up to a certain standard. From what I've informally heard from parents and kids, it's that basic English grammar and spelling have been either dumbed way down or eliminated outright from the curriculum (curricula?) of many public schools. I noticed in the work place that, during the 80s, the incoming hirees seemed to be lacking in basic English skills. It's kind of leveled out now, but some stuff I learned about the same time I learned how to put on socks, a lot of younger people don't seem to know. This apostrophe issue is a no-brainer - I think people have a vague memory that they've seen apostrophes used in plurals (that small number of acceptable usages) and they become unsure whether to use one or not. So to be on the safe side, they poke one in there at rather random times. It's a matter of simple clarity and consistency in this case. I know languages evolve and change, and they should, so I'm not the grammar police. I don't correct my kids at the table for every little pronunciation or grammar misfire (they don't hesitate to correct ME, 'tho). My parents acted like proper spelling was a bloody moral issue - actually it was, to them, a social class issue. I didn't understand that until I got a few decades under my belt. But I do love well-written English - it's a beautiful and admirable thing. Clear thinking, clear communication, and a tad of beauty - grammar and spelling and diction should serve those values. They're not ends in themselves. No different than sloppy guitar playing versus clean and in-the-groove guitar playing, really. You can either just get by or you can shine. nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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