Jan McNulty Posted October 26, 2012 Share Posted October 26, 2012 Katherine Barber (Tours en l'air) has done a fascinating blog on the use of the apostrophe, with the word Halloween as her starting point: http://katherinebarber.blogspot.ca/2010/10/out-damned-apostrophe.html She includes a link to a Wall Street Journal article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204618704576641182784805212.html Today's food for thought, methinks!!!!!! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taxi4ballet Posted October 26, 2012 Share Posted October 26, 2012 ! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taxi4ballet Posted October 26, 2012 Share Posted October 26, 2012 There is an ad for oven chips on tv at the moment, exhorting their Crispy-ness and Fluffy-ness. Er - not exactly... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julie 2 Milner Posted October 26, 2012 Share Posted October 26, 2012 I used to really care about punctuation. Loved "Eats Shoots and Leaves", but somehow it bothers me less now. Maybe I'm getting lazy. Lulu Guinness, the designer, sells a handbag with incorrect punctuation. Given the bags are hundreds I could understand why some were upset. Lately though I have started using the "oxford comma", before and, but etc. The nuns would shudder. I have one aunt though who is a demon for grammar and punctuation and I still go over any emails written to her very carefully. We all met up recently, 3 of my mums/ aunts generation and 3 of mine. We ended up discussing fewer and less etc. Re Halloween I don't think I've ever used an apostrophe but then I didn't even know when it was until I went to Uni!!! 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taxi4ballet Posted October 26, 2012 Share Posted October 26, 2012 Halloween is a bit over the top now, isn't it? When I was a kid - not all that long ago - you might have spotted the odd teenager prancing about with a sheet over their head, but that was about all. Seems like it's just another till-ringing exercise for the supermarkets if you ask me... ps: desperately trying to puncuate properly! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anna C Posted October 26, 2012 Share Posted October 26, 2012 People who use apostrophes to form plurals do irritate me. I have a friend who always does that and I have to pretend I haven't noticed. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spooky Posted October 28, 2012 Share Posted October 28, 2012 I realise that many people suffer from dyslexia but I still get irritated when people use the wrong form of a word like their/there etc and the one that always makes me smile is 'dancing in bear feet'. It just conjures up an image of people dancing with those big, furry animal slippers on! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted October 28, 2012 Author Share Posted October 28, 2012 I have discovered that I can accidentally use wrong word forms because of automatically set spell checkers that I haven't noticed and unset! This is a particular problem when using my smart phone! I'm sure he won't mind if I repeat one of my worst faux pas. I had just got my new smart phone and sent an interval tweet complementing Darren Goldsmith on his brilliant performance. Unfortunately I didn't notice that the phone changed his surname to Goldfish. Oh the mortification when I realised! I did apologise to Darren the next time I saw him and he said he had seen the funny side. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taxi4ballet Posted October 28, 2012 Share Posted October 28, 2012 Last time I bought a mobile phone, I insisted that they showed me how to permanently switch off the predictive text feature before I even left the shop! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toursenlair Posted October 28, 2012 Share Posted October 28, 2012 Darren Goldsmith on his brilliant performance. Unfortunately I didn't notice that the phone changed his surname to Goldfish. Judging from my spellchecker's desire to change Fokine to foreskin, (see my blog post about this and other infelicitious suggestions if you haven't already) it's a good thing Fokine died before the advent of the smartphone! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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