The apostrophe is doomed!

[richfool]

One that irritates me and which I often see on forums (though not on this one) is where people use "of" when it should be "have", for example:

should of, ......when it should be .....could have
would of, ......when it should be ......would have
could of, ......when it should be .......could have
etc etc.

[PinkDalek]

Similarly, ἔλλειψις preservation.

[Dod101]

One that irritates me and which I often see on forums (though not on this one) is where people use "of" when it should be "have", for example:

should of, ......when it should be .....could have
would of, ......when it should be ......would have
could of, ......when it should be .......could have
etc etc.

We are all guilty I think of using the 'should of (or more commonly surely 'should 'ave') ' construct in conversation.

Should your first example not have read

should of, ......when it should be .....should have ? (This is the Pedants' Place after all.)

Too many shoulds there.

Dod

[UncleEbenezer]

Similarly, ἔλλειψις preservation.

Continued on page 94?

[UncleEbenezer]

[
We are all guilty I think of using the 'should of (or more commonly surely 'should 'ave') ' construct in conversation.

Speak for yourself!

*shouldder*

[richfool]

should of, ......when it should be .....should have ? (This is the Pedants' Place after all.)

Yes, it should indeed have been: "should have" (and not "could have"). Sorry, I don't know what happened there. I do normally double check my posts before submitting.

I think the incorrect use of "of", is probably as a result of people shortening/cutting their spoken words (i.e. "have" ends up sounding like "of"), to the extent that they eventually think the word is "of".

[PinkDalek]

I think the incorrect use of "of", is probably as a result of people shortening/cutting their spoken words (i.e. "have" ends up sounding like "of"), to the extent that they eventually think the word is "of".

This isn't, of course, a new issue but it is more likely that some individuals are hearing or saying "should've" and expecting the ''ve' to be spelt 'of'.

[stevensfo]

A society dedicated to protecting proper use of the apostrophe is shutting down after a nearly 20-year battle against grammatical ignorance.
Retired journalist John Richards started the society back in 2001 to help preserve the “much abused” punctuation mark, but is now disbanding the organization, claiming that “ignorance has won,” CNN reported.

I was lucky in having an amazing English teacher who not only taught us about correct punctuation, but also stressed how rules can be flexible in some cases and also had to be balanced with aesthetic considerations, e.g. What to include in large signs, why you should always write 'Dr XX, Mrs XX, and never 'Dr. XX, Mrs. XX' etc. The Bible was 'Fowler's Modern English Usage' which can often be found free as pdf.

But I admit that, like John Richards, I've pretty much given up. If parents don't have the support of teachers, then they're limited in what they can do, and the literacy levels among teaching staff these days are absolutely abysmal.

Apart from the general mistakes with possessive apostrophes, my personal hates are:

its vs it's
their vs they're vs there
were vs where vs we're
your vs you're
less vs fewer
practice vs practise
advice vs advise
to vs too
effect vs affect
I should have NOT I should of
Full stops

The first two examples are the ones that really bug me, and if they do one thing in school, please can teachers at least teach those?


Steve

[swill453]

[
We are all guilty I think of using the 'should of (or more commonly surely 'should 'ave') ' construct in conversation.

Speak for yourself!

Quite!

Scott.

[Dod101]

Apart from the general mistakes with possessive apostrophes, my personal hates are:

its vs it's
their vs they're vs there
were vs where vs we're
your vs you're
less vs fewer
practice vs practise
advice vs advise
to vs too
effect vs affect
I should have NOT I should of
Full stops

The first two examples are the ones that really bug me, and if they do one thing in school, please can teachers at least teach those?

I do not think that I have ever seen they're used instead of their, but I guess it happens. The other common mistake is licence and license.

Dod

[bungeejumper]

Not forgetting "different than". My current transatlantic bugbear, and it's creeping steadily into the BBC news reports now.

Oh temperer, oh morris. Oh my blood presher.

BJ

[PinkDalek]

Another from over there is ‘protest’. Rarely clarifying if in favor (sic) or agin. The word has now found its way onto the BBC (in context), if my ears weren’t deceiving me this morning.

[doug2500]

I'm surprised this topic has got this far without anyone pointing out that it's the difference between knowing your s**t, and knowing you're s**t

Although, of course, there's an extra letter too.

[PinkDalek]

I'm surprised this topic has got this far without anyone pointing out that it's the difference between knowing your ...

You may be interested in https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=20584

[scotia]

The fight back begins!

The demise of The Apostrophe Society itself - an apparent loss to grammarians everywhere - sparked a renewed defence of the punctuation mark.
"It stirred up a real interest in the apostrophe," says Petelin, who says she received "hundreds" of messages on the apostrophe society after its closure, most proclaiming its lasting importance.
The Apostrophe Society reported a 600-fold increase in demand after Richards announced its end - exceeding the server's bandwidth and effectively crashing the site, which will reopen in January "for reference and interest".

(extract from the BBC web site https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-50692797)
Its interesting to see that the North Americans are concerned about the purity of the English language - discuss?

[UncleEbenezer]

Is it time to resurrect mention of the apostrophiser?

BTW, lemonfool thinks that word is too common to search for, so I had to google[1] instead:

The following words in your search query were ignored because they are too common words: apostrophiser.
You must specify at least one word to search for. Each word must consist of at least 5 characters and must not contain more than 12 characters excluding wildcards.

[1] Yes, I'm asserting the validity of the verb to google.

[Watis]

Is it time to resurrect mention of the apostrophiser?

BTW, lemonfool thinks that word is too common to search for, so I had to google instead:

The following words in your search query were ignored because they are too common words: apostrophiser.
You must specify at least one word to search for. Each word must consist of at least 5 characters and must not contain more than 12 characters excluding wildcards.

Or too long - 'apostrophiser' contains 13 letters!

Watis