Gammar Nazi's, In 'ere Please!

An apostrophe denotes a possessive or abbreviation, depending on the context.

Hence:

  • The book's title (the title of the book)
  • The books' titles (the titles of the books)
  • It's nearly 18:30 (it is nearly 18:30)
  • You shouldn't post links to competitors on OcUK (you should not post links to competitors on OcUK)

AN APOSTROPHE DOES NOT DENOTE A BLOODY PLURAL BTW, FOR ALL THE NUMPTIES OUT THERE WHO THINK THAT IT DOES. JUST WANTED TO GET THAT ONE NICE & CLEAR, OK?

:)
 
Evangelion said:
AN APOSTROPHE DOES NOT DENOTE A BLOODY PLURAL BTW, FOR ALL THE NUMPTIES OUT THERE WHO THINK THAT IT DOES. JUST WANTED TO GET THAT ONE NICE & CLEAR, OK?

:)
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Every time I see a misplaced apostrophe I feel like destroying something. It's almost obsessive...:o
 
mctiny said:
This is exactly what I was thinking, but every grammar book I read only had the basic rules which state what can have possessions and "Book" being classed as an object did not fall in to the "possession" category in said grammar books, hence the reason for this thread.
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Hmm fair enough. "The books title" or "The books' title", or indeed any other variation looks wrong to me.

Surely, even if said book is an object, it can still possess things? A title, for example?

Maybe I'm wrong :)

Jon
 
Evangelion said:
An apostrophe denotes a possessive or abbreviation, depending on the context.

Hence:

  • The book's title (the title of the book)
  • The books' titles (the titles of the books)
  • It's nearly 18:30 (it is nearly 18:30)
  • You shouldn't post links to competitors on OcUK (you should not post links to competitors on OcUK)

AN APOSTROPHE DOES NOT DENOTE A BLOODY PLURAL BTW, FOR ALL THE NUMPTIES OUT THERE WHO THINK THAT IT DOES. JUST WANTED TO GET THAT ONE NICE & CLEAR, OK?

:)
Click to expand...

Every time I see a misplaced apostrophe I feel like destroying something. It's almost obsessive...:o
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I think you guy's are taking this too seriously.
 
GeForce said:
Hmm fair enough. "The books title" or "The books' title", or indeed any other variation looks wrong to me.

Surely, even if said book is an object, it can still possess things? A title, for example?

Maybe I'm wrong :)

Jon
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You're right. Though "possessive case" (not "possession") is the proper term.

:)
 
Masterdog said:
The confusion about apostrophes arises from the fact that 'its' doesn't have a possessive apostrophe.
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Neither does "his" but that doesn't cause "confusion"! Apostrophes are simple things to use especially with "its" and "it's".

"Its" = "his" or "hers". Could you replace "its" with "his" and still make sense? If so, use "its".

If you could replace "it's" with "it is" or "it has", then use the apostrophe.
 
mctiny said:
a book is classed as an object which in turn does not have possessions, only people/animals/places are listed in grammar books to have possessions.
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a book has a title as an attribute. semantically, you're correct, but you know what I meant.
 
I must admit that I also get irritated when I see apostrophes in the wrong place. Something that has been getting to me more and more lately is when people say "could have" instead of "could have" or the word that was probably what they were looking for which is "could've". 'Of' doesn't even make sense in that context :confused:. Maybe I should chillax a bit.

Tom0 said:
No wonder English is one of the hardest language to learn... crazyness.
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Just out of interest, how many languages have you learnt in order for you to be able to come to that conclusion? Even if this were the case, it is not because of the use of the apostrophe as these are all relatively simple rules. Contractions might be a bit confusing if you say them to someone who isn't expecting to hear them but English is certainly by no means the only language where nouns change to indicate possesion. These rules are far from crazyness.


A question for the grammar nazis: What exactly is the purpose of a semi-colon? When should it be used?
 
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escape sanity said:
Just out of interest, how many languages have you learnt in order for you to be able to come to that conclusion? Even if this were the case, it is not because of the use of the apostrophe as these are all relatively simple rules.
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it's a common conception that English is one of the most difficult languages to learn. Pretty much all of our verbs are irregular in the sense that they don't seem to follow a pattern (at least like one I've spotted in verbs in Spanish and French). Obviously there are more justifications for this claim, but that's just something I've spotted.
 
escape sanity said:
Just out of interest, how many languages have you learnt in order for you to be able to come to that conclusion? Even if this were the case, it is not because of the use of the apostrophe as these are all relatively simple rules. Contractions might be a bit confusing if you say them to someone who isn't expecting to hear them but English is certainly by no means the only language where nouns change to indicate possesion.
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English is actually considered to be one of the harder languages to learn, because of the lack of consistent rules. Consider pronunciation... through, tough, though. Make any sense? No, not much. There's also no consistent rules for cases, tenses, etc. Its a nightmare by comparison to any language with a decent set of rules.

escape sanity said:
A question for the grammar nazis: What exactly is the purpose of a semi-colon? When should it be used?
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It's intended to put two related ideas into one sentence, where they are closer than a full stop would warrant but not so close as to use a conjunction (and, but, etc).

George Orwell regarded it as a pointless punctuation mark, and once made a point of writing an entire novel without using any semi-colons. He was apparently quite cross when no-one noticed.
 
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