First order of business
This has griped me for some time now and I finally have a platform to address it. It is a problem that has become so common, it is just accepted now. If this is offensive to you, please forgive me and just skip this post. The problem is.....................better sit down.................the misused apostrophe. Yes, I know there are those of you out there who have probably wished for years you had the nerve to address this and have been suffering in silence, but here it is now, out in the open. Okay, as I understand it, when I learned about this in GRADE SCHOOL, the apostrophe was used in place of a missing letter or letters. Like "you're" as used in the sentence "You're going way too fast honey, please slow down." You see, I am trying to say YOU ARE going too fast but I leave out the "a" and insert an '. (doesn't really save much time or ink, but someone thought this up...) It is also used to indicate posession. No not the demonic kind, but rather, for example "That is Susie's puppy." See, it belongs to Susie. I was taught that the apostrophe is like a little hand pulling something towards the owner, imagine the apostrophe the way most people write it, not like on this keyboard, but it is curved a little. So it's pulling the puppy towards Susie. The apostrophe is NOT to be used to pluralize something. For example, "There are too many car's on the highway." THAT IS INCORRECT USAGE OF THE APOSTROPHE. So STOP IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I saw a billboard a few years back that has haunted me e're since (see, the ' replaced the "v", now you're catching on.....) It said "The new FORD'S are here." Put out by the Ford Motor Company. WOW WOW WOW WOW. Who missed that one????????????????????? So if you can forward this to as many people as possible, and correct the mistake when you see it, maybe we can stop this epidemic from reaching mass proportions. Just discussing this to the extent that I have, I need to go lie down and have some chocolate and put a cold rag on my head. Nice chatting with y'all............
posted by patty @ 11:39 AM
4 Comments:
HA HA HA! Pat, I'm glad you said it before I hauled off and hit someone in the head with a stapler! My boss does that ALL the time. Drives me crazy! I have to admit, I am a bit of a grammar snob, anyway, so when people consistently get it wrong even after I tell them time and time again I go a little crazy! :) LOL. Anyway, thank you for making your wisdom known to the world. Well, at least to the blogging community. :)
I always get it's and its confused. I am pretty sure that its is the "possessive of it", and it's is the "contraction of it is".
Correctamundo, Scotter.
Wow. People do listen. Or read. Hey there Scottie. When Day and I lived in Atlanta and were listening to Rush a lot, I wanted to call in SEVERAL times. I thought he has such a large audience, that if I could explain it to all of his listeners, maybe we could get a handle on it. Wonder if I still should.
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