The apostrophe is doomed!

[scotia]

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.
“With regret I have to announce that, after some 18 years, I have decided to close the Apostrophe Protection Society,” said Richards, who explained that the decision was based primarily on two reasons: “One is that at 96 I am cutting back on my commitments and the second is that fewer organisations and individuals are now caring about the correct use of the apostrophe in the English Language.”

(quote from the Washington Post)

[swill453]

Your kidding! Thats a shame.

Scott.

[Arborbridge]

Oh no it's not!

[Dod101]

Oh no it's not!

O yes it is! Mind you I like a letter in The Times today from a reader who spotted aspargu's in a greengrocers, so he went in to tell him. The greengrocer said he had sold a lot of fruit and veg to people who came in to tell him about the mistake.

Dod

[Lootman]

A society dedicated to protecting proper use of the apostrophe is shutting down after a nearly 20-year battle against grammatical ignorance.

There are reputed to be about 6,500 different languages on earth. Anyone care to guess how many of those languages on the planet manage perfectly well without the use of an apostrophe?

[kiloran]

There are reputed to be about 6,500 different languages on earth. Anyone care to guess how many of those languages on the planet manage perfectly well without the use of an apostrophe?

In many cases, at the expense of more words, I suspect. (my brother's car -> the car of my brother)
And english does not have accents like umlauts, cedillas, etc
You win some, you lose some.

--kiloran

[Lootman]

There are reputed to be about 6,500 different languages on earth. Anyone care to guess how many of those languages on the planet manage perfectly well without the use of an apostrophe?

In many cases, at the expense of more words, I suspect. (my brother's car -> the car of my brother)
And english does not have accents like umlauts, cedillas, etc
You win some, you lose some.

The one I never get is how many European languages feel the need for their nouns to have gender.

Somehow English manages quite well without that whole extra layer of linguistic complexity. For instance, what value does it add in French for a cat to be masculine and a mouse to be feminine?

[richfool]

The one I never get is how many European languages feel the need for their nouns to have gender.

Somehow English manages quite well without that whole extra layer of linguistic complexity. For instance, what value does it add in French for a cat to be masculine and a mouse to be feminine?

It's the (French) female table that I fancy. It must be the legs.

[jfgw]

The one I never get is how many European languages feel the need for their nouns to have gender.

Somehow English manages quite well without that whole extra layer of linguistic complexity. For instance, what value does it add in French for a cat to be masculine and a mouse to be feminine?

Not entirely, although "it" is applied to most things that do not have an obvious gender (and some that do such as plugs and sockets). Ships have been feminine for centuries and have been referred to as "she" or "her", as have their sister ships and mother ships.

Julian F. G. W.

[tjh290633]

There are reputed to be about 6,500 different languages on earth. Anyone care to guess how many of those languages on the planet manage perfectly well without the use of an apostrophe?

In many cases, at the expense of more words, I suspect. (my brother's car -> the car of my brother)
And english does not have accents like umlauts, cedillas, etc
You win some, you lose some.

--kiloran

Of course, some languages use more letters than do we, and some manage with less. Welsh, for example, manages without "k" and, I think "j" but makes up for that with its mutations of "c" to "ng", "f" to "ff", "m" to "v", "d" to "dd", etc. Not only that but more are used as vowels and dipthongs. Time that I resumed my failed attempts to master the language. No wonder that Offa built his Dyke.

TJH

[kiloran]

Of course, some languages use more letters than do we, and some manage with less.

TJH

Looks like the apostrophe isn't the only thing that's doomed

--kiloran

[jfgw]

A society dedicated to protecting proper use of the apostrophe is shutting down after a nearly 20-year battle against grammatical ignorance...

(quote from the Washington Post)

Defeatist's!


Julian F. G. W.

[UncleEbenezer]

The one I never get is how many European languages feel the need for their nouns to have gender.

Somehow English manages quite well without that whole extra layer of linguistic complexity. For instance, what value does it add in French for a cat to be masculine and a mouse to be feminine?

English has some limited gender, but it tends to be archaic. Not to mention confusing if not taught: why is a male cat a "she"?

Nowadays it's been hijacked by the forces of Political Correctness, for many years as a don't-titter synonym for sex, and most recently to proclaim the divergence of 'gender' from biology.

I tend to prefer the German, where it's very clear that gender is not sex. But the feminists (at least, the literate minority) may have a point about gender being a relic of patriarchy (another word much abused by modern feminism).

[tjh290633]

Of course, some languages use more letters than do we, and some manage with less.

TJH

Looks like the apostrophe isn't the only thing that's doomed

--kiloran

More or less?

Yes, I should have used fewer.

TJH

[supremetwo]

How long before there are trans-gender dictionaries?

[Arborbridge]

Looks like the apostrophe isn't the only thing that's doomed

--kiloran

More or less?

Yes, I should have used fewer.

TJH

That's why I shop in Waitrose and not Tesco - e.g. "fewer than six items" as against "less than six items".*

Arb.
*I love that sketch with someone ranting at the title theme of Dad's Army (or perhaps it should be Dads' Army):

"It's WHOM do you think, I tell you, WHOM!"

[Dod101]

UK Shareholders' Association, obviously, not UK Shareholder's Association (it could scarcely be an association with only one member, could it?)

Dod

[PinkDalek]

UK Shareholders' Association, obviously, not UK Shareholder's Association (it could scarcely be an association with only one member, could it?)

I'm unsure that anyone, before you, mentioned an Association of Shareholders on this thread but the positioning of your question mark is a new one on me, especially when your sentence omitted a closing punctuation mark. I'd have not included the , could it, thus making the ? redundant.

Not that I'm disagreeing.

https://www.uksa.org.uk/ does, indeed, show the apostrophe in the correct place.

[Dod101]

Well I was not suggesting that the UKSA got it wrong (we are an Association of mostly rather elderly gentlemen who tend to have been mostly reasonably well educated; a few ladies thrown in) simply the importance of the apostrophe.

Dod

[UncleEbenezer]

Well I was not suggesting that the UKSA got it wrong (we are an Association of mostly rather elderly gentlemen who tend to have been mostly reasonably well educated; a few ladies thrown in) simply the importance of the apostrophe.

Dod

Interesting that your education had a few ladies thrown in. Is that something akin to the arranged marriage in a more liberated age?

We were left very much to our own devices and entirely (though not necessarily well) self-taught in the erotic arts.