Conference thebay::joyoflex

    Some years ago, there was a low-circulation publication of the Radio
    Premium Collectors Society, the _Bulletin..._ that had a variety
    of articles, including nostalgic ones, relating to old radio programs.
    One on _The Green Hornet_ was written by someone who was suffering
    from a case of nearly terminal apostrophe madness.  _Every_ plural
    or possessive used apostrophes.
    
    Reading it was most disconcerting; rather like riding on a wagon
    with rachet gears as wheels.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

A bank had a sign that said

	THE BUCK STOP'S HERE

First I thought it was just misapostrophication, but then I realized
that it's o.k. !  Can you see why ?

/Eric

The New Yorker had a wonderful cartoon last month.  A policeman has
just stopped a grocery truck, and the officer is talking to the
driver, explaining why he was pulled over.  The side of the truck
reads:

	ME AND ARNYS GROCERY DELIVERY SERVICE

The officer explains that the reason has was pulled over was
for "reckless grammar and driving without an apostrophe".

hee hee

/Eric

    re:.2
    
    It's obvious to *me*.
    
    SF author Poul Anderson has a short story "Journeys End" which
    makes for a similar confusion.
    
    --- jerry
    
    (1) Rephrase it as "Here is where the Buck Stop is."
    
    (2) It depends on whether to take "end" as a noun or a verb.

  One of the High Authorities of Grammar (Dave Barry) has said that 
  nowadays, an apostrophe means only that there is an "s" on the way...

  JP

    Re .5 (JP):
    
    >an apostrophe means only that there is an "s" on the way...
    
    
    I wish you hadn't told me that. :-D
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.        

    >an apostrophe means only that there is an "s" on the way...

    In fairne's's then, we 'should alway's give warning by putting
    apo'strophe's before all e's'se's.  Ye's?
    
    'Sid

    --- jerry

    If aphostrophes indicate that an 's is about to follow, are we now
    supposed to write I'sm, you'sll, can'st, didn'st, won'st, etc.?
    

    This reminds me of a story I just made up.
    See, there was this boy with the name of Mimothy Turphy and he was
being taught how to read out loud, with special instructions about how to
deal with punctuation marks.  And he did well.  He had a curious habit,
though, whenever he came to words like "don't" and "I'm", that sounded as
if he were missing a beat or two.  For instance, the sentence "Cats don't
like dogs" he would read as "Cats don ... t like dogs".  Finally, the
teacher asked him why he was pronouncing "don't" as "don ... t".  He replied,
"Well, when I asked you what that " ' " was, you said,

a pause, Turphy."

    From the Sydney Morning Herald:
    
    Isn't is not, it isn't ain't
    It's it's, if you mean it is.
    If you don't, it's its.
    Then, too, it's hers, it isn't her's
    It isn't our's either.
    It's ours and likewise yours and theirs

                                LAURA ASHLEY NEWS
                                OVER 100 OPENINGS
    
    Dateline: Mahwah, NJ:  Laura Ashley, the internationally renowned
    retailer of classic fashions and home furnishings with an English
    accent is relocating it's headquarters from New Jersey to Boston by
    mid-summer.
    
    ...
    
    ======
    Sigh.  And one would have hoped that their soi-disant "English accent" 
    might have saved them from this gaffe...  
    
    Perhap's it was only an "Engli'sh accent."  
    Thank's for li'stening, I feel 'so much better now.  :-)

    >And one would have hoped that their soi-disant "English accent"
    >might have saved them from this gaffe...
    
    On Usenet (not that it's representative of the general population
    [pardon me, should that be "it'''s"?]), I've seen that particular
    mistake in a greater fraction of British postings than American
    postings.
    
    And don't forget, during certain historical periods, if you tried
    speaking the King's English, you'd have nothing to speak of :-)
    
    -- Norman Diamond

    Seen on the front window of a stationery store selling party supplies
    for this year's crop of graduates:
    
    ==========
    GRADUATION
        92'
    ==========
    
    eeek.

    The disease seems to be contagious.  I just let the following escape
    my terminal:

    	"The type of data involved and the operation's on that data
    	are just too different."

    Three mistakes in one sentence.  I think this conference is giving my
    subconscious bad ideas.	:-(

    I was just out walking at lunchtime, and passed a house with this sign
    on the front lawn:
    
    			The Chandler's
    
    This left my companions and I wondering just who or what is "The
    Chandler."  
    
    -Tom

re .17

Obviously, the sign belongs to the person who makes candles.

Dave C.

What sort of house (.17) was it? If it was a Public House, the apostrophe
is quite normal. Many pubs have the name `The <noun>'s <noun>' - for
example, the King's Arms, the Queen's Head, the Fisherman's Rest ...
Often, the second noun gets dropped. I suppose a pedant might write
"I'm going to the Queen's ' ", but most people would just write
"I'm going to the Queen's".

If the house wasn't a pub, maybe the sign was liberated from a pub.

b

>     <<< Note 438.16 by SSDEVO::EGGERS "Anybody can fly with an engine." >>>
>
>    	"The type of data involved and the operation's on that data
>    	are just too different."
>
>    Three mistakes in one sentence.  I think this conference is giving my

    
    Ok, I give up.  What are the other two mistakes?
    

    Should it be:
    
    	"The types of data involved and the operations on those data are
    just too different." ?
    
    -Tom
    
    PS.  I guess this starts up the discussion of whether "data" can be
    treated as singular.

> If the house wasn't a pub, maybe the sign was liberated from a pub.

Or lettered under the table in a pub.

    Re: .21
    
    You've got it.  "Data" always has and always will be plural for me. 
    Two years of high school Latin ensure that.  At least I was consistent
    within the one sentence.	:-(

>    	"The type of data involved and the operation's on that data
>    	are just too different."

    Ok, now I understand.  I wasn't sure whether this was the
    old "plural data" argument or something even more abstract.
    For example, even accepting the "plural data" argument (I don't)
    the following sentence parses just fine, and only results in
    two changes from the original instead of three:
    
    "The type of houses involved and the operations on those houses
    are just too different."
    
    It's not clear from the context of the original whether both
    parts of the subject need to be plural.

    Good thing I posted my sentence in the apostrophe topic where everybody
    can agree I made an error.	:-)

> What sort of house (.17) was it? If it was a Public House, the apostrophe
> is quite normal. Many pubs have the name `The <noun>'s <noun>' - for
> example, the King's Arms, the Queen's Head, the Fisherman's Rest ...
> Often, the second noun gets dropped. ...

...which is why the diplomatic assignments to England refer to
the Court of St. James's...

    I found this in the Concise Oxford Dictoinary of Quotations:
    
    	RICHARD DUPPA 1770-1831
    
    	In language, the ignorant have prescribed laws to the learned.
    
    						_Maxims_, 1830
    

    Re .26
    
    Yes, but what noun got dropped from "The Court of St. James's"?  :-)

    the example didn't seem to fit what was being described ...
    
    The example derived thus ...
    
    St. James, his court
    St. James's Court
    The Court of St. James
    
    
    Now to fit what was being described, one would drop the court and
    simply refer to St. James's ... but the fact is that the description
    of referring to a public house by the possesive in the name is simply
    a generalization.  The Boar's Head is more likely to be referred to
    as "the Head" rather than "the Boar's".  "Victoria's Tavern" would
    be referred to as "the Vic" more likely than "Victoria's".  There
    are instances where it is true ... but it is by no means a universal
    rule.
    
    Stuart
    

    B-b-b-but St James didn't have a court (although on a good day he
    no doubt had a catch); so I don't buy the `St James, his court' idea.
    
    I've always believed (no authoritative source) that the court was
    named after the church just around the corner from the palace.
    As the church was dedicated to St James, I suppose it could reasonably
    have been known as `St James, his church'; though the end of .29
    establishes a precedent for possessives in place names (though I'm
    not sure how far this overlaps with the locative - which we don't
    have in English; incidentally the S that English maps used to
    to tack on the end of MARSEILLE [and many other examples, which
    now escape me] was based on a locative in the Latin]).
    
    b

    Now there's a good example of applying the principle to an example 
    without actually checking and reading the sense of the example! But
    the principal still holds ... just that the actual contraction
    changes from his to its.
    
    
    Court is commonly used as an abbreviation of courtyard ... originally
    and correctly a yard in which to hold court. However, this has been
    adopted for a small yard, generally enclosed by walls or hedges.
    
    And as to St James's court, this should be derived more correctly on
    this basis ...
    
    In normal Church of England style, the church would not be known
    as St. James's church, but rather the Church of St. James
    
    While unlikely that the reigning monarch would hold court in the
    court yard of the church of St. James, it still would most likey
    have a court yard or court.
    
    thus ...
    
    the church of St. James, it's court(yard)
    (the church of) St. James's court
    St. James's court
    
    
    It would have been interesting for St. James to hold court ...
    
    Stuart

    I telegraphed my thinking a bit. My supposition was that St James's
    Palace (which `houses' - in some sense - the court of St James's)
    is in the Parish of the Church of St James, Piccadilly. Not that
    this matters a great deal.
    
    What matters even less is what the court of the monarch was called
    before Wren built the church. Was there a parish there already?
    Inquiring minds need to know.
    
    b

    Re .31
    
    >the principal still holds ...
    
    Holds whom?  :-)
    
    >the church of St. James, it's court(yard)
    >(the church of) St. James's court
    >St. James's court
    
    Surely this should be:
    
     the church of St. James, its court(yard)
     St. James, its court, its church
     St. James's court, its church
     St. James's court's church
     St. James's court's
    
    Incidentally, I just returned from the Netherlands, where use of
    apostrophes appeared to be rather consistent:  used in plural nouns
    (suffix "'s") but not in possessive forms (suffix "s").  Has any
    Dutchperson mentioned that yet in this note?
    
    -- Norman Diamond

    	I have finally (with the help of my younger daughter) found out the
    truth about "pin's".
    
    	These are the latest craze in France, and physically closely
    resemble a traditional tie pin. However, you never see them on ties.
    You can buy special albums to collect them in, and in public they tend
    to be shown off studded all over the front of a cloth jacket, making
    the wearer reminiscent of a medi�val knight in studded armour.
    
    	I had long wondered whether "pin's" was just a corrupted form of
    the plural, and if the singular might be "pin", but now the truth can
    be told. The base form is "le pin's". It is masculine singular, and
    since it ends in an "s" there is no additional one for the plural, so
    "deux pin's" is correct if you have a second one. J'ai deux pin's
    Microsoft, and I don't want to exchange.
    
    	It is interesting to speculate that this could eventually lead to
    "'" being accepted as a normal letter of the alphabet, and what could
    happen to various existing computer languages and programmes if it was.

                                                 
    > Incidentally, I just returned from the Netherlands, where use of
    > apostrophes appeared to be rather consistent:  used in plural nouns
    > (suffix "'s") but not in possessive forms (suffix "s").  Has any
    > Dutchperson mentioned that yet in this note?
    
    ...it's about time. The rules are consistent but it's not simply a
    matter of plural versus possessive - what's more important is the last
    letter before the plural or possessive "s." As in: 
    
      een foto 		twee foto's 
      een caf�		twee caf�s 
      een lepel 	twee lepels
    
    ...one/two photographs cafes, spoons. The second "o" in "foto" is long,
    and adding an "s" with no apostrophe would make is short (I've also
    seen "fotoos" but that's no excuse). The "�" in "caf�" is long enough
    to survive without apostrophe. Same story for possessives, more or
    less:
    
      Karels caf�
      Corines lepel
      Angela's foto
      Fran�ois' machine
    
    But there is a tendency to use an apostrophe for all possessives in
    order to avoid ambiguities: "Hermans hoest" can mean "Herman's cough"
    as well as "Hermans coughs" (Herman is a first name, Hermans is a
    surname). All this from memory - the people in the Netherland's might
    have changed one or two rule's in my absence.
    
    -maarten. 
    

    One more word of lingustic trivia about pins:
    
    In Norway, the pin craze in connection with the 1994 Winter Olympics
    at Lillehammer, Norway, has caused Norwegian lingustic standards
    authorities to decide that the correct singular form of this new
    Norwegian word is "pins"(!). Quite ridiculous if you ask me, but
    they never did... I guess that's one way of expressing independence -
    adopting a distorted version of an English word.
    
    Henrik

>I guess that's one way of expressing independence -
>    adopting a distorted version of an English word.

Oh, so *that's* the reason behind this crap...


/*  The software contained on this media is proprietary                     */
/*  to and embodies the confidential technology of                          */
/*  Digital Equipment Corporation.                                          */
/

    Re .37
    
    Care to elaborate?  I don't see what you're getting at.

We'd digressed from "misusing apostrophes" to "using a plural word
where the sense is singular".

My text in .37 is from the official DEC software copyright notice.

    
    
    G'day,
    
    
    Perrrleeeease.. I know it's wrong, but Why oh why does the phase:-
    
    
    I've got the hungry's for Hungry Jack's
    
    
    grate my nerves so much?
    
    (Hungry Jack's is the local Burger King franchise...)
    
    derek
    
    

    The plural of hungry, when the word is pervertedly used as a noun, is
    hungries.  I don't have the hots for that kind of advertising, myself.

    G'day,
    
    It was reported in the press recently that Mr Apostrophe has been very
    successful here in Oz...
    
    The Somethingorother Ammendment Act, 1996 includes the change
    
    Amend the Somethingorother Act such that all references to "ACRONYM's"
    should read "ACRONYMs"
    
    One small win for Mr Apostrophe, one giant leap for mankind.
    
    
    derek