Apostrophes or is it apostrophe's?

[bluebug32]

Beats me. In all fairness, there is some dispute as to whether certain acronyms, e.g., those with periods, and usages like "the 1980s" should take an apostrophe. I, personally, prefer them without because it seems more consistent with the other rules on apostrophe use. Whichever rule you follow, just be consistent in any given communication.

Most of these types of questions depend on the style book you're referring to.

[indysteel]

Most of these types of questions depend on the style book you're referring to.

Yes, I know. It's too bad that the correct standard isn't more settled. It seems needlessly confusing.

[bluebug32]

Yes, I know. It's too bad that the correct standard isn't more settled. It seems needlessly confusing.

It is. At least most of my jobs have followed the Chicago Manual of style.

[goldfinch]

I think some of the rules are unnecessarily complex. For example, the whole lie, lay, laid, and lain thing should be tossed out and redone.

I am not fond of "that" and "which" either.

So there!

But at least our words don't have genders. Seems like a silly concept when you aren't born to it.

[jessmarimba]

I wish whoever authors our templates at work could learn punctuation in relation to quotation marks. It looks so funny to me to see commas following an end-quote. I correct them for my personal reports but most people don't mess with template language (since it's supposed to be standard).

I think the templates are probably maintained by the same manager who ALWAYS uses an apostrophe to pluralize things. I've suggested we ought to contract to a real live editor (or similar) to give our report language a once-over, as I find it hard to take someone's work seriously when it isn't presented professionally, but it doesn't seem to bother anyone else on staff.

[Veronica]

I think some of the rules are unnecessarily complex. For example, the whole lie, lay, laid, and lain thing should be tossed out and redone.

This gives my fifth graders fits! I try to approach it with which one needs a direct object. You lay "something" down. Or you, yourself, lie down and take a nap.


Of course once you move into the past tense, all bets are off.

Veronica

[goldfinch]

This gives my fifth graders fits! I try to approach it with which one needs a direct object. You lay "something" down. Or you, yourself, lie down and take a nap.


Of course once you move into the past tense, all bets are off.

Veronica

Yup. My feeling is to drop lay as the past tense of lie.

[SheFly]

Most of these types of questions depend on the style book you're referring to.

You mean: Most of these types of questions depend on the style book to which you are referring. Right?

SheFly (That is a situation up with which I cannot put. Mark Twain)

eta - I just read to the end of the messages. This post is NOT a target at Bluebug, nor anyone else on the forum. MY personal grammar pet peeve happens to be dangling participles. That and using phrases like "In order to" instead of just saying "to". My issue only. Oh wait - I think I just wrote an incomplete sentence!

[OakLeaf]

You mean: Most questions of this type depend on the style book to which you are referring.

Fixed that for ya.

[SadieKate]

Anyone remember the Barbara Cartland novels which were quite racy back in the day? At camp we used to read them aloud . . . including the dot-dot-dots.

Back then (yes, the Dark Ages) it all would have been typeset. Oy.

Oh. Sorry. Oy . . .

[jessmarimba]

You guys might find this funny.

At Target, at the pharmacists' counter, they have a little pamphlet:

Where's it at? Here's a map!

"Where's it at?" Really, Target? Your editing staff didn't catch that? It MIGHT be acceptable if "at" rhymed with "map." But it doesn't. It makes me cringe so badly that I may email corporate to ask what on earth they were thinking.

[BikeDutchess]

I should have taken a picture of the sign at the grocery store last night. A professionally printed sign, I might add.

Turkey's $0.99/lbs

[lph]

Late in. I have my pet peeves, but then I have my blind spots too. I can blame them on being bilingual but truth is there's a limit to how much I want to check on my posts.

A few thoughts: good spelling, grammar and syntax are assets when trying to communicate well. But so is a clear idea of what you're trying to say, to whom. You have terrible spelling and still get your idea or message through loud and clear, and you can write technically flawlessly, and have people going "huh?" It's the idea that gets communicated in the end that matters most to me, not the technique along the way. And on this board I enjoy a lot of the random rambling too.

Back to apostrophes: in Norwegian we use a single apostrophe to indicate possession if the name ends in a s, like Jesus' someone mentioned above. Is this not used otherwise in English at all? I think it looks rather elegant

[Irulan]

You guys might find this funny.

At Target, at the pharmacists' counter, they have a little pamphlet:

Where's it at? Here's a map!

"Where's it at?" Really, Target? Your editing staff didn't catch that? It MIGHT be acceptable if "at" rhymed with "map." But it doesn't. It makes me cringe so badly that I may email corporate to ask what on earth they were thinking.

Um, Isn't "where's" a contraction of "where is"? I thought we used an apostrophe in a contraction. /confused.

[Veronica]

The apostrophe is fine. I thought the problem was the preposition at the end of the sentence.

Veronica