One of the joys of this site is the generally high level of punctuation and spelling displayed in the posts.
The same cannot be said of many scribblings - whether they be online or on paper. I accept the fact that language evolves over time, but still get mildly annoyed (or sometimes amused) by spelling and/or grammatical 'howlers'.
A casual glance at many a greengrocer's chalkboard will often announce "tomatoe's" or "brocolli" for sale - but is it really worth getting hot under the collar about it?
Watching a foreign film on TV the other night, a subtitle popped up with, "He should of told me about that earlier". The end is nigh, I tell thee.....
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>> A casual glance at many a greengrocer's chalkboard will often announce "tomatoe's"
It's now often referred to as the greengrocer's apostrophe. I understand that if its use becomes sufficiently widespread, eventually all words ending in s will (to be correct) require an apostrophe in front of the s.
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My daughter used to wear a top that said something like "I'm you're little angel" or something along those lines. She's grown out of it now but it used to make me cringe.
It was a top brand too, Next or Gap or one of those calibre.
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Although I muck about with words quite orften on here, I actually try to speak the Queens English (believe it or not)
I listen to BBC Radio 4 & 5 dead during the day and it never ceases to amaze me the amount of 'so called' edumacated people who say nuffink instead of nothing (or sumfink)
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The newspapers are filling up with solecisms of that sort, and misspellings and other illiteracies are becoming more common there too. It's because they have fired all the old subs who could read and write and hired new baby ones who can work computers in order to look at pictures, but weren't taught to read and write at school. There was a time over the last few decades when teachers quite often denounced correct English usage as restrictive and discriminatory. Damn sanctimonious moronic carphounds. Of course it was always obvious that schoolteachers constituted the bulk of the intellectual proletariat.
I'm afraid the rot has gone very deep indeed. After all it doesn't matter here if people use textspeak or stick apostrophes where they don't belong. But I still haven't recovered from hearing the Queen mentioning 'a free media' in a recent Queen's Speech. New Labour ought to have got it right, or the palace, or indeed the monarch herself who must have been taught Latin as a child.
Faugh!
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I sometimes get the idea that the average reading age of the members on this site is about 95.
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>> members on this site is about 95.
Eh? What? Speak up young man, have you got a speech impediment or are you whispering (roots in Gladstone bag for gutta-percha ear trumpet).
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>> One of the joys of this site is the generally high level of punctuation and
>> spelling displayed in the posts.
I would have thought content was of greater value and enjoyment?
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>> I would have thought content was of greater value and enjoyment?
Well you would of, wouldnt you :-)
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I see. Boring drivel is preferred as long as it is grammatically correct and correctly spelt?
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If you all start using text speak, I'm off.
Pat
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I WLL TLL U THS FR NTHNG I DNT US TXT SPEAK AND I DNT DO LV AND KSSS SO THR MY FAIR WEATHRD FRIEND
tinyurl.com/3y2xchy Link shortened to restore page width to normal
What can you say ?
a text speak converter
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 10 Jun 10 at 19:26
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On other forums they allow text speak it's so anoying.
Bellboy, U CAN B MY M8 UR GUD @ TXT R U OK?
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Very amusing bb. A new way round the swrfltr too...
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Now look what you've done BB, it's gone all out of shape:)
Pat
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I think the lady on the end of the phone at British Gas thought I was a moron when I called up to ask them to correct their records. I pointed out that names usually begin with a capital letter, and it doesn't look professional when they send out their bills addressed to "mr fred b bloggs".
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>> and it doesn't look professional
>> when they send out their bills addressed to "mr fred b bloggs".
Ah but don't you think it looks stylish? Professional is so old fashioned.
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>> I think the lady on the end of the phone at British Gas thought I
>> was a moron
Heaven knows what the lady at Gritish Bas thought of me when she cold-called me to see if i would buy their electric as I already bought their gas.
Jokingly, I told her that we didn't have electric here. She said 'Oh, you're all gas then ? '
before ringing off.
I notice a lot of people type the word ' loose ' when they mean ' lose something '
My mate actually Emailed the Advertising Standards people to complain about a current Stella ad that uses the word ' less ' when it should be ' fewer '
They mailed him back to say it was too trivial a matter for their attention !
Ted
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>>
>> My mate actually Emailed the Advertising Standards people to complain about a current Stella ad
>> that uses the word ' less ' when it should be ' fewer '
>> They mailed him back to say it was too trivial a matter for their attention
>> !
Quite right too. What a waste of peoples time.
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"What a waste of peoples time"
people's time
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>> What a waste of peoples time.
Up to a point, Lord Copper... but aren't the advertising standards people there precisely to have their time wasted in that sort of way, when not censoring claims that beer will make you sexually attractive and potent and similar snake-oil hucksterisms?
Of course it's awfully sweet of you to care so much about the lives of advertising standards authority bureaucrats. But I feel it may be wasted sympathy.
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>> >> What a waste of peoples time.
>>
>> Up to a point, Lord Copper... but aren't the advertising standards people there precisely to
>> have their time wasted in that sort of way,
No?
>> Of course it's awfully sweet of you to care so much about the lives of
>> advertising standards authority bureaucrats. But I feel it may be wasted sympathy.
Not sweet, we pay the bureaucrats. If less people bothered them with fatuous carp, we could sack a few of them.
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>> Spelling / punctuation - worth bothering about?
No. Language, spelling and grammar allows me to form some opinions about the writer - including for example thier education, class, laziness, ignorance and upbringing.
>> >> advertising standards authority bureaucrats. But I feel it may be wasted sympathy.
>>
>> Not sweet, we pay the bureaucrats. If less people bothered them with fatuous carp, we
>> could sack a few of them.
>>
The ASA - " We receive no Government funding and therefore our work is free to the tax payer. We are independent of both the Government and the advertising industry and operate according to published standards of service. "
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>> One of the joys of this site is the generally high level of punctuation and spelling displayed in the posts
Absolutely, it's one of the main reasons why I use it (and used to use the BR). I was thinking along similar lines today when walking past my local Vauxhall dealership, as it was advertising monthly finance rates for "Corsa's", "Meriva's", "Astra's" and "Insignia's" in 3-foot-high letters.
Having children at both lower and middle schools I feel I should be setting a good example of spelling and grammar - I am grateful that my parents did so when I was young. If my kids grow up writing "would of" and "could of" I would feel a sense of failure. How they speak, of course, is a different kettle of fish entirely. Innit.
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I don't have a problem with written conversational English.
Spelling mistakes and misuse of words annoy me because it causes me to stop reading, and I have to work out what's being meant before moving on.
The goal of a language is for one person to be understood by others.
It simply doesn't work if we are not all singing from the same hymn sheet.
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"Spelling mistakes and misuse of words annoy me because it causes me to stop reading, and I have to work out what's being meant before moving on."
I do the odd bit of voice over work every now and then (English bloke abroad, it's easy work) and it's amazing, and irritating, how you can be thrown off whack by an out of place comma, missing apostrophe, or dropped letter. A tiny error can change the inflection and intonation of a paragraph of text which can then take, literally, several seconds to re-read.
My personal style of speech is sloppy with a strong Salford accent, littered with profanities and slang. I struggle to string a coherent sentence together at times. But written - I'm very particular and very fussy.
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On the rare occasions I text I spell and punctuate properly. And that darned predictor thing is turned OFF.
JH
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I was very fortunate to receive a good education in English grammar, spelling and punctuation; I certainly don't claim to excel at it but I do suspect that it is of great assistance when writing job applications, letters of complaint and the like.
I don't really have issues with the undeniable fact that some people were not as lucky as myself in this respect; what does matter to me is that they do actually make the attempt to write their posts in coherent English, rather than just dash it off without bothering to proof-read it first. My personal pet hates are improper use of capitals, text-speak (especially that stupid lol and roflmao rubbish) and lack or paragraph spacings.
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Although I went to very highly regarded junior and grammar schools, my grammar and punctuation was not especially good until I started writing valuation reports under the supervision of an old school surveyor who had had a sort of Victorian type upbringing in a poor family but seeking to better themselves. He soon got me writing in a clear, concise and correct manner that I still use.
I read a lot of poorly written reports these days and feel sad for the customer who wonders if the expensive report he has paid for is actually worth anything (or maybe they don't realise?).
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What a sad smug lot the apostrophe people are rejoicing in their superiority over those who don't understand or can't be bothered with one of the least useful punctuation marks. If the apostrophe was abolished tomorrow it would make no difference whatsoever to the understanding of the printed word. The same goes for the semi colon.
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...Language, spelling and grammar allows me to form some opinions about the writer...
...my grammar and punctuation was not especially good...
A lot of this about, too - plural subject with the singular form of the verb, even on the once beyond-reproach BBC. You could argue that there's a sort of ellipsis going on in these two examples - you sort-of understand 'use of' in the first and 'grasp of' in the second, but even so...
};---)
Abolishing the apostrophe would, on balance, probably help, since there are very few cases where its (no apostrophe there, please - although more, even here, seem to get that one wrong than right these days) presence actually conveys useful information. The one case I can think of is that the boys room doesn't tell you how many boys are involved, as the boy's room or the boys' room does.
I'm generally with those who find poor grammar, spelling and usage get in the way of understanding. This isn't the same as wanting English to be frozen in 1910 and never to evolve; rather (hands off my semicolon!) that clarity of expression is important enough to be worth taking some trouble over.
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"Hands off the semicolon"
George Orwell famously managed to write an entire novel, "Coming up for Air" without a single semicolon and Ernest Hemingway was all for its abolition. Get rid I say.
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I can see that the semicolon is less useful when writing a narrative, but it's tremendously useful when constructing an argument or an explanation; it allows you to juxtapose two related thoughts and show the connection much more clearly than if you separated them with a full stop.
On the other hand, Thomas Hardy's novels are full of the things, and that doesn't constitute a recommendation.
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Glad you are not using Thomas Hardy's prose style to justify the use of the semicolon. Brings back memories of "O" level Eng Lit.
You might have a point about its use in argument. Will agree to keeping it if we can get rid of the apostrophe.
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>>
>> A lot of this about, too - plural subject with the singular form of the
>> verb, even on the once beyond-reproach BBC. You could argue that there's a sort of
>> ellipsis going on in these two examples - you sort-of understand 'use of' in the
>> first and 'grasp of' in the second, but even so...
>> };---)
except that one of the above examples could have been (and was in fact), (honestly guv), a simple typo, introduced while editing the sentence on the hoof.
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Not really sure what you have brought the the debate CGN, and I don't have a strong view either way on the matter, but IMO using one's language properly (so long as it isn't pedantic) isn't sad or smug, whereas "can't be bothered" is almost the ultimate smugness.
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Of course using the the language properly isn't sad or smug but people like Lynne Truss banging on about a perceived misuse of a minor punctuation mark as if it really matters is sad. There is a large element of snobbery about it as exemplified in the rather sneering term "greengrocers apostrophe" .
The use of the apostrophe has been confused and confusing ever since it introduction. There is virtually no instance where the meaning cannot be established by context without its use.
Since half the population do not understand its use and the other half get so annoyed by its misuse time to get rid and make everyone happy.
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I would suggest that a lot of grammatical errors on-line are down to people using spell-checkers rather than resorting to their education. In much the same way,having been taught arithmetic in the days before calculators, I despair at the children of today being unable to add up the most simple amounts without recourse to pressing buttons.
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Look, one can do without much punctuation at all. Some here may remember what I fondly call 'steam telex', used for real-time quick transmission of text in the middle ages before email. All letters were capital, there were the numbers, and punctuation was restricted to full stop, comma, colon and dash (to the best of my memory, it's been a while). Can't remember if there was an apostrophe, but a single quote mark is the same thing. Plus and equal signs as well perhaps.
That sort of telegram text has a sort of style but elegant it isn't. Personally I value the apostrophe and the semi-colon although I try not to use semi-colons too much, as some French writers do. But there are writers, good and even great ones - Cormac McCarthy springs to mind - who punctuate very sparingly and are stingy with capital letters too.
The answer to the question is that they are worth bothering about, but you don't have to use them in exactly the same way that others do. Only, if you use them, or leave them out, in an unconventional way you had better think it through or your text will be a mess that people don't always understand.
Thats my two cents worth (spot deliberate omissions).
Heh heh.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Thu 10 Jun 10 at 23:53
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Some points from the above posts are confusing but to try and clarify I would like to add the following ( while trying to punctuate properly!)
If you don't speak properly, how will your children ever learn to spell properly?
It was forever ringing in my ears as a child 'there's a T in Peterborough, Pat'
I was educated at Grammar School after passing my 11plus and two points were drummed into us during English language classes.
Apostrophes denote a missing letter as in it's ( it is)
Titles warrant capital letters.
Now, I notice complaints about improper use of capitals and have looked over the thread titles on this forum and see that some do and some don't.
Was I taught wrongly all those years ago, or does protocol change over the years?
Pronunciation certainly has done.
Two other points.
Pedantry is akin to superiority.
Good manners are a sign of a good education, and pointing out others mistakes says it all.
Pat
Last edited by: pda on Fri 11 Jun 10 at 05:25
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>>>there's a T in Peterborough, Pat
Worth remembering the spelling tip from my office days when folks would remind you there was no F in wheelbarrow.
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I often use slang and cockneyspeak to throw ppl orf the fact that I went to Eton & Harrow ...
as a delivery driver :-}
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>> Apostrophes denote a missing letter as in it's ( it is)
The problem is they also denote possession ie. "the driver's car" (the car belonging to the driver) or "the drivers' car" (the car belonging to the drivers) - no missing letters here. But "it's" is the exception - apostrophe here can only mean missing letter (ie. "it is") and never possession.
Doesn't bother me in forums but it does amuse me when what you assume to be professional writers get it wrong.
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The apostrophe is a relatively recent invention, and always signifies a missing letter.
In the case of possessives it replaces an "e" , "es" being the old English genitive case ending.
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...>there's a T in Peterborough, Pat...
In the north east, some people have a habit of missing the 'h' sound from the start of a word, and inserting an 'h' at the start of words that begin with a vowel.
I heard the following from a witness in court a few years ago:
"'e 'it 'im on the 'ead with han haxe."
To translate:
"He hit him on the head with an axe."
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>> The apostrophe is a relatively recent invention, and always signifies a missing letter.
>> In the case of possessives it replaces an "e" , "es" being the old English
>> genitive case ending.
So if I wrote "the driveres car" that would be ok? :)
Also, can you differentiate between singular and multiple possession?
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...Also, can you differentiate between singular and multiple possession?...
Yes, bring on s-apostrophe instead of apostrophe-s.
'The car's headlight is broken' - one car, one headlight.
'The cars' headlights are broken' - more than one car, more than one headlight.
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>> ...Also, can you differentiate between singular and multiple possession?...
>>
>> Yes, bring on s-apostrophe instead of apostrophe-s.
I gave an example of that in my previous post - I meant using Cliff's 'es' old English thing.
Last edited by: Focus on Fri 11 Jun 10 at 09:34
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Old timers from Luton were famous for dropping their 'h' and 't'.
The town was famous for making 'a's.
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So can someone clarify on the use of capital letters for titles please?
Then I can look back at the forum index and see who has committed foo pas:)
Pat
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>> So can someone clarify on the use of capital letters for titles please?
Titles or personal names?
hospitality.hud.ac.uk/studyskills/writing/Punctuation/capitals.htm
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That's an interesting link, thanks L'es or should that be Les or L'es's:0
Pat
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...So can someone clarify on the use of capital letters for titles please?...
Capitals should be used sparingly and for proper names only.
"John Smith is the chief executive of Bloggs Motors."
'John Smith' and 'Bloggs Motors' are proper names and take caps, 'chief executive' does not.
Some titles take caps only when used with the person's name:
'Prince Charles visited a school today. The prince spoke to teachers and pupils.'
Capitals disease on menus is a bugbear of mine, you will often see stuff such as:
'Pot roast loin of Beef with baby Spring vegetables.' - the only correct cap is the 'P' in 'pot'.
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I actually meant titles, as in thread title, orthe title of a piece of literary work.
I have to write a number of word documents that need a title...............?
Pat
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>> >> ..
>>
>> I gave an example of that in my previous post - I meant using Cliff's
>> 'es' old English thing.
>>
I don't know how it worked in the plural - perhaps it couldn't differentiate.
I just know it accounts for some of that quaint spelling in Chaucer etc and old documents.
Fowler (Modern English Useage) has a good section on how to spell and say things like
"the Joneses' tea party" or St. James Square or St. Thomas' Hospital.
I once heard a pedant arguing about how to spell Chambers Dictionary.
The name is Chambers, it was published by two brothers, so he argued it should be Chamberses' Dictionary.
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apostrophe not required, perfectly understandable either way.
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Yes it is worth bothering about. It seems to me that those who can, do - and that those who can't make excuses for their ignorance.
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There are plenty of people who write well and have something to say whose spelling and punctuation is a bit shaky. Conversely there are those whose spelling is immaculate, can list all the uses of the semicolon and can explain the difference between the present perfect simple and the present perfect continuous but whose minds are empty and have nothing to say worth reading. They are often inordinately proud of their grammatical skills as if that was the whole purpose of writing.
Of course spelling and punctuation are worth bothering about but at the end of the day its a comparatively minor skill and those possessing it should not feel overly superior.
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Whilst tending to be on the "superior" end of the spectrum, all this reminds me of a punny old joke.
Q. Who led the pedants' revolt?
A. Which Tyler!
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Some interesting points made by all!
There is, I suppose, a motoring analogy here. There are many on this forum who get very worked up indeed about other drivers' lack of driving skill or etiquette - much of which could be described as the 'minor punctuation' of driving :-)
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Mmmm, even more interesting is the fact that no-one wants to rule on capital letters for forum thread titles.
Could it be that they are afraid we can all look back and see who has been 'ignorant' and who hasn't?:)
Pat
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Why would the rules be any different from standard for thread titles? Initial capital, and capitalize the usual stuff (names etc), IMO.
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Smokie has it right, Pat. Capitals are for emphasis, so keep them for the first word and for proper nouns, in this context at least. A title that's destined to become a sort of compound proper noun in its own right is a bit different and gets an initial capital on all but articles, conjunctions and prepositions: The Origin of Species; The Importance of Being Earnest; The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover.
And there, incidentally, is another use for the semicolon: separating items in a list where the items themselves include commas.
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Than you.......I'm off now to check the pendants thread titles:)
Pat
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>>Than you.......I'm off now to check the pendants thread titles:)
Have we got a thread overlap? Pendants got me thinking of mammaries. ;>)
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>>Than you.......I'm off now to check the pendants thread titles:)
Will there be a prize?
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I have just remembered an argument I had with one of the big publishing houses a few years ago when I translated a lurid and garish French novel set in the 19th century.
The copy editor was quite startlingly ignorant and awful. I had to suppress a lot of very silly and irrelevant changes - a tremendous nuisance because one isn't paid in princely fashion for translating from French (the general view, quite wrong, is that anyone can do it). One of the things she did was to add a lot of apostrophes representing dropped aitches and gees to represent urban working-class speech, resulting in silly rows of the things. Any writer would know that one has to do things like that with a light hand to suggest the accent, not try to reproduce it exactly in every detail. That makes the whole reading experience too arduous, and looks terrible on the page.
The argument with the publisher though was about possessive apostrophes. The editor and publisher thought that (e.g.) 'Buggins's turn' should be written 'Buggins' turn'. My view was that the terminal apostrophe should only be used for plurals, e.g. 'the soldiers' rations', not for names ending in s. In the end I prevailed, but I was amazed that they normally did that.
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The thing is... you would pronounce it as Buggins turn, not Bugginses turn, wouldn't you.
What's interesting is that I have just read every last work of Rattle's review of his car. It's well written with care being taken over the spelling and grammar. What a difference from when he first arrived, when it would not have been worth reading. So yes, it matters.
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Taking care over spelling and grammar reveals a tidy mind - not doing so often reveals a slap dash outlook and lack of courtesy for the reader.
I woodn't hav it any udder weigh..:-)
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>> you would pronounce it as Buggins turn, not Bugginses turn, wouldn't you.
No. I would pronounce it Bugginses turn. But it takes all sortses...
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>>My view was that the terminal
>> apostrophe should only be used for plurals, e.g. 'the soldiers' rations', not for names ending
>> in s.
With you entirely, AC. This apparent desire to eliminate the genitive "s" on names ending with "s" is also heard in changed pronunciations (e.g. St James' Park, St Thomas' Hospital. the Prince of Wales' visit) - drives me mad & confirms me as resident in old-bufferdom.
However... Buggins' turn is given by the Shorter Oxford, and does seem to be traditional. I always heard it as Buggin's, anyway, not knowing anybody of that name!
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Spelling / punctuation - worth bothering about? - L'escargot
