Job Discussion Forums

[flutterbayou]

... what topic?


But the apostrophe has nothing to do with British or non-British English.

If someone were to write that Sam's on a tirade again, the apostrophe always has, does now, and shall continue to fill in for the abbreviated 'is'.

Whuzzo' hard about that?

[veiledsentiments]

It's (its) all about Duffy's (Duffys) frustration with the repeated mis-use of the apostrophe - by supposed teachers (teacher's) of the language. We ALL know the rules.

VS

[Duffy]

FB,

I was responding to a post on another thread, but not wanting to take that one off topic.

You, I, Lall and VS and lots of others know the usage but it would seem that there are "English" teachers out there actively discouraging it's use, hence my reference to lazy English (the language that is).

Duffy

[veiledsentiments]

[boundforsaudi]

What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering here...

Duffy wrote: "...discouraging it's use..."

This is what I'm talking about. The handy excuse is that it's a careless typo. It ain't. Duffy just don't know the rule. Anybody who's taught competently for a year has corrected this error so many times it's really not gonna happen in his own writing. Never. And in a thread specifically about the apostrophe? Give me a break.

VS wrote: "Nope Duffy was just complaining about the usual problem of putting the darned thing in the wrong place."

Come on, VS. Read the original post again. I know this is incredible, but Duffy's original complaint was based on his belief that the degraded varieties of English, i.e., non-British, have been forsaking the apostrophe outright. Exactly where to put it has not occurred to him as a serious problem.

[bje]

LOL thanks boundforsaudi for providing some good quality early-morning humour.

[mishmumkin]

I know all the rules for the use of the apostrophe, but I regularly edit my posts on this forum for similar mistakes. Today I changed "you're" to "your"; last week I used "it's" for possession before editing the post. Sometimes we're just human! Admittedly, if I notice that a teacher comes on here (hear-another switch I've caught myself making) and regularly "mis-types" then I do wonder if it's lack of knowledge or just no desire to edit.

[veiledsentiments]

[johnslat]

The Great Apostrophe Conspiracy uncovered:

Dear veiledsentiments,

"Do we need to blame the Aussies? Kiwis? "

Sweet sufferin' succotash, you hit the nail right on its "Downunder" head:



World StoryRSSFacebookMyspace
Professor argues the case for tolerating bad language
12:00AM Sunday June 19, 2005
By Genevieve Roberts
When Lynne Truss laid down the law on apostrophes and sloppy language in her bestseller Eats Shoots and Leaves, the nation quailed.

But for those who failed to brush up on their grammar, hope is at hand from a new book that celebrates slang and poor punctuation.

In a counter-argument to Truss's book - which sets out to preserve traditional conventions of grammar and punctuation - Kate Burridge, a linguistics professor at Australia's Monash University, calls for the apostrophe to be dropped. "When I suggested on radio that the possessive apostrophe should be dropped ... because people get it wrong so often, you would have thought a public flogging would not have been a severe enough punishment," she says.

"I received hate mail, and some letters from the apostrophe support group, though not all of them used the apostrophe correctly."

In her book Weeds in the Garden of Words, she calls for dictionaries to acknowledge new words and usages in order to stay relevant.

"Today's weeds - non-grammatical expressions and pronunciations - are often rewarding garden species if left to grow. The words that Samuel Johnson described as low usage and cant, such as novel, bamboozle and capture, are now conventional."

She believes euphemisms will deteriorate in the future, when people will be more direct about bodily functions.

Ms Burridge says Eats, Shoots and Leaves shows the passion people feel towards preserving the language.

"People can get too worried about these things. Communication is important, people are not being co-operative listeners by focusing on specific words."

For Ms Burridge, the truly evil weeds in our language are dishonest euphemisms that try to sound neutral when really they are negative, such as "friendly-fire" and "downsize". She says these words should be banished for camouflaging meaning.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10331478

Regards,
John

[mishmumkin]

[veiledsentiments]

[Duffy]

Ok, the whole thing that kicked this off for me was what Lotsa wrote in another thread. I could have challenged it there and then but that would have dragged the thread down, here is what Lotsa wrote in reply to a post from BFS which was non too flattering also about the subject of this thread:

BFS wrote:

[Duffy]

[eha]

Whoops! Spoke too soon, obviously!

[lall]

MOD edit