What's with the golly-goshing a'postrophes?

[Seawinder]

16 hours ago, Greg B said:

You should really read this and comply

 

I saw the thread (but didn't open it), so used the punctuation, thinking it would be an acceptable alternative to "bloody," which was my initial intention. Would that have been okay? Not being British, I don't know the present status of that word in the expletive continuum.

[hairystick]

We currently have the method of calling the police "pleese".

When pointing out that there is a missing vowel in the word, you can get lots of blank stares...

 

Are we becoming more like America, where vowels are readily removed with great abandon? Colour, aluminium, etc.

[ckw]

59 minutes ago, hairystick said:

We currently have the method of calling the police "pleese

Well that's because we've added a vowel to 'please' (pu-lease). Got to keep a balance.

 

I think I'm right in saying that 'proper grammar' isn't taught in schools anymore, so a lot of things we older types learned by rote are now subject to wild guessing. Couple that with the fact that perhaps the majority of young people's communication is via social media, and you're bound to see a change in the English language to reflect the change in culture.  The apostrophe may well die out as it seems relatively few seem to know how to use it properly, and so has limited functional purpose. We will have to deduce the meaning from context.

 

Certainly something written 200 years from now will be full of 'mistakes' - but then so is English written 200 years ago when compared to modern convention, And Shakespeare is nearly unreadable for most school kids. 

 

As to American English - in some ways it is 'purer' as it stems from the first British settlers in the 17th century. This is before Samuel Johnson produced his famous first dictionary of the English language. But Johnson didn't just record the language - he had his own views on how it should be written, and at the time British intellectuals of 'the age of reason' were looking to the classics (esp. Latin) for models. Johnson and others wanted to offer a classical veneer to English by codifying both spelling and grammar. So while Shakespeare wrote 'color', Johnson wrote 'colour' as he felt this better reflected the etymology of the word. In short, American English derives from Elizabethan English while 'modern English' derives from the later Age of Reason (which for most of the time had a non-British royalty!).  

 

Cheers

 

Colin

 

 

[Mike]

14 minutes ago, ckw said:

Certainly something written 200 years from now will be full of 'mistakes'

I'm sure it'll all be double plus good.

[ckw]

4 minutes ago, Mike said:

I'm sure it'll all be double plus good

That reminds me of my current pet peeve - the use of 'super' ("I'm super excited ...") with everything. And due to over use, we now hear "Super super ..." since the emphasis provided by just one 'super' has been diminished. 

 

Cheers

 

Colin

[Bullbasket]

Another teeth grinder, the practice of adding "ality" to words. Somebody is now going to tell me that it has always been there, but I don't remember hearing it when I was growing up, or even when I reached my 50s. Functionality. What's wrong with saying "how it works"?

 

John.

[ColonelKrypton]

32 minutes ago, ckw said:

That reminds me of my current pet peeve - the use of 'super' ("I'm super excited ...") with everything. And due to over use, we now hear "Super super ..." since the emphasis provided by just one 'super' has been diminished. 

 

Epic, narely fer sure dude. Stay woke.   🤪

 

[Mike]

I'm currently irritated by (amongst many other things - must be my age) everyone saying they're "obsessed" with things.  Lots of insta adverts and people using it to describe liking something a lot.  "I'm obsessed with my new self-emptying cat toilet".  Good for you.  Seek professional help at your earliest convenience (no pun intended).

[JeroenS]

On 11/02/2024 at 05:05, Seawinder said:

Perhaps it's my OCD component, but every time I see a plural noun with an apostrophe it drives me nuts. Photo is a frequent victim: "I've got some photo's to share." 

Whoops, guilty as charged your honour (or honor). My excuse is that in my own language, the apostrophe is actually used for the plural form. Foto --> foto's. 

 

Well, that's me off to read all of my previous posts and correct them. 

[Pig of the Week]

2 hours ago, Mike said:

I'm currently irritated by (amongst many other things - must be my age) everyone saying they're "obsessed" with things.  Lots of insta adverts and people using it to describe liking something a lot.  "I'm obsessed with my new self-emptying cat toilet".  Good for you.  Seek professional help at your earliest convenience (no pun intended).

And when people claim to be "Stoked"....  eating coal perhaps? Who knows... 

[Mike]

17 minutes ago, Pig of the Week said:

And when people claim to be "Stoked"....  eating coal perhaps? Who knows... 

Then there's gutted, but that seems to be allowable, and I'm guilty of this one, so

[dnl42]

Eats, Shoots & Leaves is a fine book! 

 

I thought I was too high on the spectrum stressing over all those gratuitous apostrophes.  The one word I cannot stand is "genius", as in "New self-emptying cat toilet, it's genius" 

[Wez]

19 hours ago, Learstang said:

Yes, I know that 'cliche' should have an accent, I just don't know how to add one.

 

That's easy outside of Word, (at least in Windows), go to the search bar in the start menu, type in Character Map then pin that to your start/task bar.  I don't know whether the Apple equivalent has this but I was always told that Apple products were so good that they'd do this for you.

 

22 hours ago, bootneck said:

Not so odd as it sounds, over the years I've had to do funerals for a tortoise, two cats and a budgerigar.  All at daughter's insistance!

Mike

 

I'm with you on this, they're photo's because it's a contraction of photographs, photos by contrast is an abomination

 

 

What a funny lot we are, thank you for this thread, it has really cheered me up.

 

I share most of the peeves already shared here however, the one thing not yet mentioned which really irks me is not using AN in front of a word that either begins with a vowel or sounds like it begins with a vowel (em or ess sounds for instance).

 

I was taught English in the 1970's, then I joined the RAF where I was exposed to "the boys from the Mersey and the Thames and the Tyne", to quote Elvis Costello, that really expanded my vocabulary.  Now, working in Aircraft Engineering we have to use STE or Simplified Technical English, quite frankly, it makes my blood boil! 

 

In case you think that this is an age related thing, it isn't, my kids are quite excised by some of the poor English they come across, many of which have been mentioned in this thread.

 

 

[ckw]

41 minutes ago, Pig of the Week said:

And when people claim to be "Stoked"....  eating coal perhaps? Who knows... 

Things like that don't bother me - they're basically colloquialisms, and not abuse of the language. Its a reflection of the individual's background and culture, hence IMHO quite interesting. It tells us something about the person.

 

5 minutes ago, Wez said:

 

I'm with you on this, they're photo's because it's a contraction of photographs, photos by contrast is an abomination

I don't understand the reasoning behind this - photo is a contraction of photograph, hence 'photos' is the obvious plural. If there was no singular photo, you might have a point.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

[Pig of the Week]

"Innit"  (also often used as an affirmative) is somewhat irritating to say the least.. 

[ckw]

40 minutes ago, Wez said:

one thing not yet mentioned which really irks me is not using AN in front of a word that either begins with a vowel or sounds like it begins with a vowel

That's an interesting area - 'metanalyis' which is the movement of letters from one word to another. For example, in Shakespeare you'll see frequently see the word 'nuncle' which was the old word for 'uncle'. In effect 'a nuncle' becomes 'an uncle'.  It works the other way too 'a newt' used to be 'an ewt'. The changes were probably done to mis-transcribing the spoken word to the written word, and would have depended on who the speaker was and placement of stress, regional accents.

 

I suspect that anyone who misplaced A and AN does so because that seems more natural for them with their particular manner of speaking. Someone mentioned 'nuclear' as a problem word - I also have difficulty pronouncing it correctly - and will say 'nucular' unless I make a real conscious effort to say it right. Some things just don't flow off the tongue as easily as they might. Of course, in English the written word is often a very poor guide as to how the word is spoken 'Tough', 'Though' 'Thought' -3 very similar words on paper, but very different when spoken. No surprise that English is considered difficult to learn!

 

Cheers

 

Colin

[Alan P]

Stoked by this thread, could say I'm totes obsessed with it's super super mega ultra full on-ality.

 

Better then you're usual topic's innit.

[Mike]

3 minutes ago, Alan P said:

Stoked by this thread, could say I'm totes obsessed with it's super super mega ultra full on-ality.

 

Better then you're usual topic's innit.

I just can't even!

[Bullbasket]

1 hour ago, Pig of the Week said:

"Innit"  (also often used as an affirmative) is somewhat irritating to say the least.. 

Ah, but.....you've got to be innit to winnit!

[Wez]

1 hour ago, ckw said:

I don't understand the reasoning behind this - photo is a contraction of photograph, hence 'photos' is the obvious plural. If there was no singular photo, you might have a point.

 

I blame the education system that was en-vogue during the 1970s, I was taught that when you contract a word you should use an apostrophe so photographs becomes photo's.  There's every chance I completely misunderstood that lesson (it won't be the first time and certainly won't be the last).

 

1 hour ago, ckw said:

That's an interesting area - 'metanalyis' which is the movement of letters from one word to another. For example, in Shakespeare you'll see frequently see the word 'nuncle' which was the old word for 'uncle'. In effect 'a nuncle' becomes 'an uncle'.  It works the other way too 'a newt' used to be 'an ewt'. The changes were probably done to mis-transcribing the spoken word to the written word, and would have depended on who the speaker was and placement of stress, regional accents.

 

An orange is another one, in Spanish it's naranja, you can see how it went from a naranja to an orange.

 

1 hour ago, ckw said:

I suspect that anyone who misplaced A and AN does so because that seems more natural for them with their particular manner of speaking. Someone mentioned 'nuclear' as a problem word - I also have difficulty pronouncing it correctly - and will say 'nucular' unless I make a real conscious effort to say it right. Some things just don't flow off the tongue as easily as they might.

 

Susie Dent (she of Dictionary Corner), knows rather a lot about the language did an interesting broadcast on Radio 4 a few years back about how the language develops such as changing in response to make things easier to say.

 

1 hour ago, ckw said:

Of course, in English the written word is often a very poor guide as to how the word is spoken 'Tough', 'Though' 'Thought' -3 very similar words on paper, but very different when spoken. No surprise that English is considered difficult to learn!

 

We, as native English speakers are quite lazy with the language whereas somebody learning it as a second language will probably try to learn it properly, it is said that it's this that will give them away in conversation.

[alt-92]

1 hour ago, ckw said:

For example, in Shakespeare you'll see frequently see the word 'nuncle' which was the old word for 'uncle'. In effect 'a nuncle' becomes 'an uncle'.

 

Interestingly, Flemish Dutch still has Nonkel. 

 

Btw:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chaos (complete version: https://ncf.idallen.com/english.html )

 

In other words:

 

[Mike]

51 minutes ago, Wez said:

Susie Dent (she of Dictionary Corner),

Got a book by her for Christmas (I hate Xmas), and it's an interesting read so far.  It's all about the etymological origins of words and phrases we use today and in the past (not passed).  No, not the insects.

[dnl42]

49 minutes ago, Mike said:

Got a book by her for Christmas (I hate Xmas), ...

FWIW, that is very old, and respectful.

[Pig of the Week]

2 hours ago, Bullbasket said:

Ah, but.....you've got to be innit to winnit!

I gave up that racket when they doubled the price from a quid to £2..😁

[pigsty]

4 hours ago, Wez said:

my kids are quite excised by some of the poor English they come across,

Ooh, what a dilemma - do I tell him that should be "exercised" ... in a thread about misusing words ... ?