h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What is it with greengrocers that they always feel obliged to add spurious apostrophes to everything?

It's perfectly correct to write cauli's, since it's short for cauliflowers. I'll even accept potato's as it's a shorter version (just) of potatoes, but then they get completely carried away with carrot's, bean's and cabbage's... AAARGH!

Mind you, there's also a hairdresser near me called The Arche's Salon. Perhaps it belongs to a family called Arche?

(PS. I think I missed my vocation as an English teacher)

This morning I would have agreed, but since then I have done it by accident myself, and it is too late to change...

Surely you mean Spuriou's apostrophe's?

I once read a grocery manager's report (I was working for a supermarket chain at the time, and this chap was my superior!) where EVERY word ending in the letter "s" had an apostrophe - it was so funny I couldn't keep a straight face next time I saw him. I felt like giving it back to him smothered in red pen corrections... but of course I never told him!

It was the fashion in Spain a few years ago to add an 's to everything. I suppose they thought they were showing off their knowledge (or lack) of English grammar. Hence you could see Juan's bar etc. The worst I've ever seen is a shop that sells sofas and it's called Divano's! I've always had an urge to go into the shop and ask to speak to Senor Divano. There is another shop called Bed's! Three guesses for what they sell there?
dl

Oooo, yes, those folks and the people that use "1970's"... Grar, that's so wrong!

In principle, I agree. However, if you have a collection of letters, each of which is an "x", what do you call them?

You shouldn't be too hard on these people. Most people are stupid, which is not their fault, and they have gone through an education system that didn't believe in grammar.

Dry.

what peeves me (and you get it alot on the internet) is people who don't know the difference between you're (you are) and your (belonging to you).

You're right, they must not teach grammar in schools anymore!!!

2of3

Don't start on their, they're and there!
Or should have/should of.
Or "to all intensive purposes" which I have heard more often than I'd like

(On Comic Relief day we all dressed up as school kids and I was Teacher. Not 2 in 10 of my work colleagues had any idea about grammar. But does it really matter?)

Well your right? grammar; and for that matter speling ass well shouldnt be tort in skule ass itull onlie! confuze peeple and leed to misudd... misund... peeple not, noing wot your tolking a bat: so wot if wurd's ar speled rong hu cair's eneway an az for apos-trofee's wot ar thay eneway;

(cont'd p.94)

I don't like the its/it's error. Especially when the perpetrators are teachers or journalists.

I just graduated high school and can say that very few English teachers believe in teaching grammer. Luckily my last year I had a good teacher who didn't exactly teach grammer, but failed essays that were written poorly. I finally learned that a large part of what had never been marked on papers was actually wrong. So I don't want to say that "it's not their fault", because they could do something about it, but (at least if they're Americans) odds are they didn't have many people to teach grammer or spelling.

The worst use of an apostrophe was on an advertisement for a discount ticket on a First City Line bus in Bristol. It was especially bad since the advert had clearly been written by a marketing department, and possibly a graduate. It read: "The ticket that get's you more". Correct me if I'm wrong, but there would appear to be no situation in the English language in which an apostrophe could ever be acceptable in the word 'gets'.

Some researcher I am. Oh no, I've had to correct myself. It would appear that there are no fewer than three possible uses of the word 'get' as a noun. But the fact remains: whoever wrote that advert was incredibly stupid.

A stupid get?



My particular peeve is 'poured over' used to mean 'read carefully'. Usually found in newspaper articles.

When I find myself getting cross about the misuse of language, as I was taught it, I try to remember some of what Bill Bryson writes about in Mother Tongue. Perhaps our language is just in a particularly hectic stage of evolution?

If our language is in a state of evolution, personally I am afraid of what it will sound like in a few years.

I am willing to accept a change if there is some purpose in it. However, the purpose of language is communication, which implies the recipient of the message knows the code to understand it. If you change the rules too often, some people may not know what you're saying. That's one argument for keeping the code constant, or only making small and infrequent changes.

Dry.