Help pyro's

pyro

pyro

pyro

Soldato
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Can someone please explain to me the use of the apostrophe? I see a lot of people using it and it, well, I have to admit, I never really focused on studying my grammar (I had a really hot English teacher!) so I do get confused on when to use it.

"John's cds are scratched" the 's meaning that the cds belong to John, yes or no?

"Johns cd's are scarched" is wrong, yes or no?

Because I saw this topic on another forum, where a guy was asking about cds with testing material on them, the title was "Demo Test CD's", shouldn't that be "demo test cds".

:confused: :confused:

(Yes I am a dirty foreigner, don't flame! lol)
 
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pyro said:
"John's cds are scratched" the 's meaning that the cds belong to Mark, yes or no?

"Johns cd's are scarched" is wrong, yes or no?
:confused: :confused:
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The CDs belong to John... dunno where Mark comes into it.

"John's CDs are scratched" is correct.

After a name the ' indicates posession.

Otherwise the ' will be replacing a missing letter(s). "It" is confusing for many:

It's = It is.
Its = Something belongs to it.

make sense?

Oh and as for people in posession of something, where their name ends with an 's' the ' comes after said s.

"James' huge pantaloons caused much hilarity amongst his coworkers"
 
Jono said:
The CDs belong to John... dunno where Mark comes into it.
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I was talking to Mark on the phone :o

Jono said:
make sense?
Click to expand...

It does, yes...but then it would mean that a lot of peolpe don't know how to use the apostrophe? Because I see it a lot when shouldn't be used, and it confuses me!
 
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Its ok in a few years apostrophes will be redundant because theyre barely used by the youth of today anymore

;)
 
CD is an acronym for Compact Disk. So I'd say the correct plural is CDs.
 
You should buy and read "Eat, Shoots and leaves"! :)

Yes, it is CDs, PCs because they are plural.

Apostrophe when it belongs to someone like Paul's tattoos. (notice no apostrophe in tattoo)

Actually I wouldn't be surprised that some foreigners have better punctuation/grammar than a some english persons.

With "I am going to the Jones's", i normally write "Jones's" whereas my other half (Oxford linguist) says both "Jones's" or "Jones' " are acceptable.
 
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Jono said:
"John's CDs are scratched" is correct.
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Now we must deal with pluralization. The way I learned it was that acronyms that end in a letter recieve an apostrophe to make it plural
ex: John, please reimage the IBM's in lab four.

Things end in a number are pluralized with no apostrophe. This includes dates and acronyms/abbreviations.
ex: These reports are from the 1970s.
 
BillytheImpaler said:
Now we must deal with pluralization. The way I learned it was that acronyms that end in a letter recieve an apostrophe to make it plural
ex: John, please reimage the IBM's in lab four.

Things end in a number are pluralized with no apostrophe. This includes dates and acronyms/abbreviations.
ex: These reports are from the 1970s.
Click to expand...

It would seem IBMs and 1970's are acceptable too according to Oxford. I suppose we all have our way of writing it, as long as it is one of the 2.

/edit - someone once branded me a grammar nazi here i think, and posted a fake nazi poster...i can't find it. Anyone have it?
 
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