Quote Originally Posted by ny biker View Post
I like "top comma" -- it sounds like common sense to me, and is easier to spell and pronounce than "apostrophe."

I really can't figure out if people here don't understand what I am saying or if they are just not listening (or bothering to read my emails.) It happens pretty often. If I say "this actually has nothing to do with apples, the problem happens when we try to peel an orange" the response I get is "so I should test apples?"
This happens to me all the time. And to my dh too. It never ceases to amaze us how many people who cannot absorb information given in writing. Or who consider written information sort of a vague guideline, something that needs to be confirmed in person. I have coworkers who will ask me something by email, I'll answer concisely and to the point, and THEN they'll come over to me to hem and ha until I repeat the answer in person.

I'm getting a little better at giving that information in the first place. By, for instance, by capitalizing the most important phrase in an email, or by repeating essential info. But in conversation I think very many people only listen for a split second, then answer to what they THINK you're talking about, rather than what you're actually talking about. And a lot of the time they're thinking more about what to answer next than actually listening.

If they seem to be thinking a lot about apples, it takes a moment to really park the apples and get on to oranges :-)