Oldun

Yes, it does exist...

http://www.apostrophe.org.uk/

kingofturds

iTrader: (1)

Telboy will be pleased.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Not with the spelling error in the thread title

TelBoy

Oh good God

Oldun

TelBoy

Oldun

Look, it's about these '''''''

Not speeling error's







****.

Sorted now.

boxst

I do have sympathy in some instances. This



is obviously wrong.

But you can see the logic. This is parking that belongs to residents. So it should be resident's parking. But, residents is plural (probably the hardest of apostrophes to work out) so it becomes residents' parking. And then someone completely messes it up by removing 'parking' and putting it as a heading ...

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

So you mean it's parking for just one resident and one visitor?

TelBoy

Steve, why is the plural apostrophe the hardest to work out? Plenty of people on here struggle with it i know, but how hard is it to add an s to a noun? One resident, two residents. Plural possessive ok that probably required one English lesson of not arsing about on the back row, but seriously, "add an s if there is more than one" how hard can it be? Why do so many people get it wrong so often?

RobsyUK

iTrader: (2)

So any word that you put an s on the end to make it a more then one or word needs a '?

So cats would be cat's....

TelBoy

Robsy, no. To keep with your example of a cat;

One cat. I see a cat.

Two cats. I see two cats.

Milk belonging to one cat. I see one cat's milk.

Milk belonging to two cats. I see two cats' milk.

Apostrophes ONLY need to be used if you're talking about something that belongs to something or someone. NEVER if you're just talking about more than one of something.

From what i see on here, it's nouns that end in a vowel that cause the most confusion. But they're no different. Take the word employee for example.

One employee. I am hiring one employee.

Two employees. I am hiring two employees.

The truck belonging to one employee. The employee's truck.

The truck belonging to two employees. The employees' truck.

Terminator X

iTrader: (7)

How about "the boys marbles" re a bag of marbles and just one boy or the same but a group of boys? What about if it was one marble each plus a group of boys

TX.

boxst

Just speaking from experience of reading and correcting submitted papers.

"How hard can it be?" can be heard emanating from my office at regular intervals throughout the day :-)

boxst

The boy's marbles (one boy...)

The boys' marbles (multiple boys)

The boy's marble (one boy)

The boys' marble (multiple boys)

Multiple boys with one marble each cannot be written in the same way and still make sense.

jef

iTrader: (13)

oh goody' theyll love my imput.

where do i sign's up?

PaulC72

****'s'....;-)

Sadly sheeps does not work in those examples.

TelBoy

TX, i see Steve has replied. The rules are the same, whatever the combinations. Just take a second to determine how many of each you have (boys, marbles, cars, legs or whatever) and then put the apostrophe in the right place as either my or Steve's examples illustrate.

But the Golden Rule is never, ever, ever use an apostrophe just to make one of something into more than one of something. Car will ALWAYS become cars, knife will ALWAYS become knives and so on. You ONLY need to worry about apostrophes when you are talking about stuff belonging to something/someone, "possessive" as it's called.

Leslie

There is an awful lot more in maintaining the English language than the use of the apostrophe.

The BBC used to be the most accurate example of the correct use of our language but it has sadly gone into decline in this respect.

Les

TelBoy

What's imput?

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

Telboy, what are your thoughts on people who use apostrophes correctly and in the right place, but always substitute them for a comma?

i.e Bio's scooby versus Bio,s scooby

boxst

Yes, but English is full of words that are either exceptions or need context. In this case you need context to determine whether "sheep" is singular or plural.

You would probably use a different phrase for plural rather than clumsily try to fit an apostrophe into the sentence.

TelBoy

Good question. Seen it many times, never commented, never really been sure if it's a limitation of the device being used or something? To me it's a bit like pesky Continentals who use commas where we use decimals in numbers, 21,7 instead of 21.7 for instance. It's an idiosynchracy i can tolerate!

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

Device limitation, mmm yep it could be that, but unlikely

So I think you are being too tolerant. I'm pretty sure it's always an error by the offending posters and they should also be brought to task!

Yea agreed, damn those pesky continentals!

Chip

Tel,

I never thought I would be able correct your grammar.

But do you mean IDIOSYNCRACY

Chip

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

That's the issue with threads like these, you try so hard not to make any mistakes that you end up making schoolboy errors. As you can see I had to edit my post before

Chip, technically you corrected his spelling not his grammar

Oldun

Tell me about it, I had to alter the spelling in the title.

Chip

I stand corrected.

jef

iTrader: (13)

i appreciate my input may not be even read lol, and this is ne of those threads where - id often comment "if youve nothing constructive" then just dont read the thread or comment on it.
a few points - firstly as many will know im not great with spelling or grammar, mostly because its not high on my list of priorities when using written language to communicate - added to my relatively poor typing skills. However im confident each post i make is understandable to any reader - and not beyond anyones ability to understand- even full of spelling or grammar errors.
things i think are important are ease of reading for the person - to me, paragraphs. use them fairly often to break up the reading - but not even necessarily when a subject is changed although often useful at these times. but small regular paragraphs are far more likely to entice me into reading maybe a lengthy post.

secondly - i beleive in the evolution of language, its constantly happengin and will continue to do so, there is nothing that can stop it. im willing to accept it, maybe not encourage or use certain forms - but i wouldnt protest against it, as its interesting to see - to a point "awrite bruv, happnin m8" is not what i mean by this.

thirdly i appreciate its important to some people. they seek enjoyment from making the effort they put in, and the knowledge they have. they wold like to see more of it and think it is important - entitled to there opinion, but not to push it on everyone.

lastly - the grammar, spelling police are just not needed, as a sole purpose for replying in a thread its plain stupid - although running jokes and comical comments in jest are encouraged as part of banter, belittling, putting down, aggressive or just plain not nice
;( comments that are serious are not needed.
its often clearly used as a chance to portray ones intelligence being grater than anothers, or a marker of someones social class, and used to make some feel superior - thats the saddest thing of all.

very lastly im glad there are forums ect for thngs like this, its not a bad thing to discuss language, punctation, grammar ect - it can help teach those that are interested, and is a decent topic for discussion

and yes im fully aware this post is totally riddled with all sorts of errors, those that feel the need can tear it to grammatical peices if they feel the need. i make no apologies for it, i just dont have the time or feel its necessary to go back through the whole post, just for an internet forum- no disrespect

TelBoy

Ah that's ok, i'm not infallible on spellings, although i try to be. I was thinking actually, in my years on Scoobynet, i've learned two spellings that i used to get wrong, pronunciation and humorous. Idoisyncracy not sure if i'd habitually put an h in that or not, i very rarely use the word. I'll be certain not to now.

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

Idiosyncrasy was again spelt wrong above too

It's also spelt with an S at the end, not a C Chip!