My Sunday begins and the weather is turning yet again…..but life goes on….give it a couple of days and it will change again…..
These days grammar is not as important as it once was…..and the electronics and the language that goes with the mobile phone can be blamed…..
If you find yourself texting about “Johns scarf” or “Shellys hat” because it’s so much easier than switching to your phone’s punctuation menu to add an apostrophe, congratulations, you’re part of the problem: The Apostrophe Protection Society is officially shutting down. The society was started by retired journalist John Richards, 96, in 2001 to preserve the proper use of the “much-abused” apostrophe, but in a statement on the official website, Richards says that while he and his supporters did their best, “the ignorance and laziness present in modern times have won.”
“Fewer organizations and individuals are now caring about the correct use of the apostrophe in the English Language,” he adds, though he also notes that at age 96, he’s decided to cut back on his commitments. He noted that the website will remain up and running for now “for reference and interest.” Among other things, the website includes these three rules for correctly using apostrophes, the Evening Standard reports: Use them to denote possession. Use them to stand in for a missing letter or letters. Don’t use them to denote plurals. There are more rules, of course, when it comes to when you leave them out of words, and those who know the rules will appreciate the jokes on Twitter like this one from people announcing the shuttering: “Its over.”
A sad day for the English language…..but then aint they all? (it was left out on purpose)..
“Lego Ergo Scribo”
Nicely done, chuq. I still despair about it, but I understand why they are now shutting up shop.
Best wishes, Pete.
Purists will be bummed…..but as we talked about earlier….things change….chuq
while we are at it, let’s eliminate paragraphing, line spacing and distance between words too. It would make things ever so much easier. —– whileweareatitletseliminatelinespacionganddistancebetweenwordstoo.Itwouldmakethingseversomuch easier.
Some blogs have done just that…it is “style” and content and the way to attract the mindless. chuq
“Mindless” works on a two-way street and is entirely conceived through bias.
In these days of stupid…we can all suggest that it is bias…but that is the easy answer for those that have no ideas or positions chuq
“Stupid” is a really convenient word for those whose minds are set in stone, isn’t it?
Ignorance/stupid whichever applies…..chuq
There’s also that tedious “-“. A phone number previously written as 555-123-1234 becomes 555.123.1234 for the same reason. It depends on the keyboard, of course. I use or don’t use the apostrophe, depending on some unknown internal sense of what’s right. It gets one in situations like “don’t”, of course, but multiple IDs don’t get any respect, let alone an apostrophe.
Blame the keyboard I always do especially when my spelling is off…LOL chuq
I am anal about spelling and pay attention to those words underlined in red. Unfortunately, I sometimes miss them anyway. There are some combination of letters that don’t register on spellcheck as errors, too., =as is that type of error.
There are some words that do not show up under the red line…..so it is understandable that some make it through…..chuq
Yes, apparently they aren’t in the file dictionary.