Insufferable swot with a dictionary up 'is arse, innit?

[torqueless]

OK, I know I cannot be the only one who gets irked by this. I will spell it out once, just in case any of the offenders would like to get it right, otherwise it just gets wronger and wronger by contagion:

The apostrophe denotes one or more missing letters. It is used with a following "s", after a noun, to denote ownership. Either the ownership of the thing (noun) by a person, or the ownership of an attribute by a thing (or a person).
In either case, It is simply a shorthand way of writing "its" or "his"

Examples:
The bicycle its wheels are round.
becomes: The bicycle's wheels are round.

John his bicycle has round wheels.
becomes: John's bicycle has round wheels.


The apostrophe is not used for plurals.
You can test just how nonsensical it is to use an apostrophe with following "s" for a plural by replacing it with "its"

(Wrong) Example:
John has twelve bicycle's.
becomes: John has twelve bicycle its.

Since John has twelve bicycles, Let us give him the surname; "Dozen", and deploy a (hopefully) familiar scenario:

Example:
John Dozen has twelve bicycles. All of Dozen's bicycles have round wheels. John Dozen has a family. None of the other Dozens that constitute John Dozen's family give a shit about John's bicycles.

In that example there were eight opportunities to get it wrong- Eight nouns with an "s" at the end that either do or do not need an apostrophe. Just for fun let us do that example again and get it wrong eight times:

John Dozen has twelve bicycle's. All of Dozens bicycle's have round wheel's. John Dozen has a family. None of the other Dozen's that constitute John Dozens family give a shit about Johns bicycle's.

 

[unkleGsif]

Susie "she who must be obeyed when it comes to such things, 'coz she is generally amazing" Dent was on Radio 4 yesterday, talking not specifically about the apostrophe rule, but the use of "Americanizationed" English, and language general.

The jist of her comment was that historically, the Americanizing of English was initially intended to make learning English much easier to immigrants into the US. While I prefer correct spelling and punctuation, I can completely understand and endorse this. She also made the point that of all people learning English, the vast majority will not be learning in a UK or even English context, therefor the decline in the seemingly unnecessary U's and O's, substitution of Z's for S's, and even use of the dreaded apostrophe should be accepted

G

 

[tintin40]

its just a chatroom for bikes (spot the deliberate error lol) as long as you can read it. who cares?

 

[DynaCol]

Re:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-40878110 :mrgreen:

 

[tintin40]

Re: Re:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-40878110 :mrgreen:

i bet they wished they hadn't written in English

 

[mk one]

Some say wronger isnt correct, but like tintin has said, its just a bike forum, innit

 

[torqueless]

Re:

U's and O's, substitution of Z's for S's,

:evil: I'll accept " "U"s ", but not " U's " (This does get complicated, doesn't it?)

its just a chatroom for bikes (spot the deliberate error lol) as long as you can read it. who cares?

Yeah, "its" is my apostrophe blindspot- I can never quite work out whether it takes one or not. I take your point. I don't really care, just as I don't really care whether someone puts a French threaded freewheel on their English threaded hub, but if it looks set to become common practice, then I have to say something.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-40878110 :mrgreen:

Nice one.. A name with a terminal "s" combined with ownership!

Torqueless' (Torqueless's?) own grammatical limitations become apparent..

 

[mk one]

Language evolves, always has, always will!

 

[tintin40]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has word blindness on this site? And it's hard work getting spelling correct

 

[torqueless]

Re:

Language evolves, always has, always will!

But, except in a very broad cosmic sense, evolution is not synonymous with corruption and decay?
There are plenty of words about that now mean more or less the exact opposite of their originally intended meaning- "economics", for example, which was once about eking out limited resources, is now the method by which we make sure that our grandchildren foot the bill for our profligacy.

Another apostrophe trip-up situation is the combination of plural with ownership- "Reader's Road Bikes" section would be fine, if all the bikes there belonged to one reader!