Why do people insist on forming plurals with an apostrophe? (examples, grammar)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I don't think using an apostrophe to form plurals is by any means a phenomenon of last few years.
Example that comes to me and still haunts me
2001-2002, was in 7th or 8th grade. Played a PC game called Age of Empires. Played it online and was part of a gaming group or "clan". The leader of this clan (old enough for his sons to also be in the clan) would ALWAYS form plurals with 's. It used to drive me insane. Once I snapped and wrote an entire paragraph with " 's " at the end of each word.
On the topic of "talking dumb"
I consider myself be well literate. My posting style may not be perfect, I type as I think so it may sometimes appear unrefined. I do not go back to embellish my posts other than fix major issues or spelling, however I think my posts convey a speaking tone higher than average verbal english, at least in parts I frequent.
I frequently find myself saying "had went" "yall" "aint" and other such improper or incorrect terms. Will I speak that way if addressing congress or the united nations? Of course not. I think there's a time and place for everyday speech and proper speech. Makes me think of this video
If you stick around City-Data long enough, almost everything becomes circular over time.
Forums are like a parade that goes through a town in a big circle eternally. The parade always has new members joining in at the rear, and old paraders dropping out in the front. The same questions, especially the most popular ones, get played over and over as the parade marches on.
Like any parade, the marching band never has all that many members. Most of a parade are just folks marching along in step, dropping in or dropping out as they wish, singing along with the band once in a while, just marching to see where it all goes while the band plays on.
If you stick around City-Data long enough, almost everything becomes circular over time.
Forums are like a parade that goes through a town in a big circle eternally. The parade always has new members joining in at the rear, and old paraders dropping out in the front. The same questions, especially the most popular ones, get played over and over as the parade marches on.
Like any parade, the marching band never has all that many members. Most of a parade are just folks marching along in step, dropping in or dropping out as they wish, singing along with the band once in a while, just marching to see where it all goes while the band plays on.
That's an excellent analogy. I've been around City-Data a good while, just not in this sub-forum. I've always found the subject of proper English interesting though, perhaps because I'm an engineer and engineers are notorious for their lack of writing skills.
I've gotta disagree with walmill a couple of posts up though ... there's no legitimate reason for using improper grammar while speaking, unless it's obvious you're doing it to make a point.
My peeve is improper use of apostrophes with digits.
Mine is inserting the apostrophe when none is needed, as in a post from the True Crime forum, "You will never convince me that the Ramsey's are innocent."
Mine is inserting the apostrophe when none is needed, as in a post from the True Crime forum, "You will never convince me that the Ramsey's are innocent."
I cannot figure out why people do this.
I think some of it comes from signage.
Around here, it's popular in some neighborhoods to have a plaque on a home or a mailbox that says "The Ramsey's".
It's a possessive use of the apostrophe that announces this is the Ramsey's house. The house becomes easily confused with the Ramseys who live inside it for some people, I think.
Other objects like Jenny's car, Billy's dog, and other stuff tends to reinforce the incorrect apostrophe, so pretty soon, a tomato's flavor ends up being "Pick up 2 tomato's at the produce counter" on a grocery list.
Once a mistake comes to look right when written, it becomes a habit that's very hard to break. Even though I knew "1980's" was incorrect, I found myself using the apostrophe habitually. It took some dedicated intent and practice before my eye agreed that "1980s" looked correct and agreed with my mind.
A person's eye, I believe, tends to over-rule the brain when it comes to spelling and punctuation. English is full of visual contradictions that make no difference at all in the spoken word.
I still get confused with the 'ough' thing all the time. Slough, bought, though, tough, all sound very different. If our written language more closely followed it's own rules, I think a lot of the other mistakes would be less common.
Last edited by banjomike; 08-18-2018 at 11:50 AM..
What kind of education does it take to get a job in the grocery department of a supermarket?
Next to none. That doesn't change the fact that much of our understanding of language is not specifically taught from the 'highly educated' but is absorbed from usage we witness. I don't know about you, but most of my vocabulary has just been picked up. Though I love dictionaries, I certainly have never used one - nor have I consulted an English professor - as to the meaning of most of the words I use. Nor, when discovering a new word, do I demand the credentials of the source of that new addition to my vocabulary.
As to the grocer's apostrophe, I confess that while I'm familiar with the term, I don't recall ever encountering one in a grocery. But then, when I'm shopping for produce, I'm looking for produce and not looking for excuses to sneer at sign-makers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lovehound
There is are two reasons for improper use of apostrophes. (1.) Poor education or lack thereof. (2.) Just don't give a damn.
Obviously. So it goes with anything. Some people have tantrums over beginning a sentence with a conjunction. Others don't. I certainly don't, though I'd avoid it in technical writing meant for publication or when, say, querying a literary agent. But (yes, that was intended) it is a practice I use widely in both casual and literary writing. If someone has a problem with that, it is their problem and not mine. With apostrophes, I make a point to use them correctly, though I do not fancy myself error-free and do not lord my English usage over others like some sort of social cudgel. If someone else misuses one? I don't care, as the meaning they intend to convey is almost always obvious.
We're discussing this from different angles, I think. In matters of language, I'm interested in why people speak and write as they do. But that they do so in particular ways does not bother me.
Last edited by 2x3x29x41; 08-20-2018 at 01:38 PM..
I don't know that it is so much "giving up." I mean, the purpose of a language is to get the majority of speakers of that language to know what you are trying to convey when you use it. As such, when a "mistake" becomes so commonplace, it then ceases to be incorrect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RocketDawg
I don't buy that. I'm an engineer and am used to things being black or white, right or wrong. If they're wrong, they don't work.
Read Shakespeare. It positively teems with usage that is no longer correct. In The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Proteus refers to 'mine eyen'. Today, we would say 'my eyes'. To use 'mine' is no longer correct. And 'eyen' was then the dual form for 'eye' - when speaking of precisely two of them, the word was 'eyen'. Now it's just eyes, because as the Germanic plural form of adding 'en' became rarer and rarer, people simply assumed (mistakenly) that any plural of 'eye' must follow the then-increasingly common English practice of making a plural my adding an 's'. There are countless examples of this.
Just consider the apostrophe. It entered the English language in the 16th century, and English seems to have survived just fine for all those previous centuries without it. Initially, it was used solely to indicate missing letters. Then it was adopted to show both possession and plural forms. The latter use has mostly, but not entirely, died out. At some point the possessive form 'it's' saw the apostrophe discarded, to avoid confusion with the otherwise identical contraction of 'it is'. Oh, and when it jumped from English to French, 'apostrophe' was pronounced in the French fashion, 'ap-o-STROPH'. That, too, has changed, entirely because English speakers brought their English assumptions to the word in print and assumed that the second syllable would be stressed and that the 'e' would not be silent.
I have no doubt that every single one of the aforementioned changes were met by people gnashing their grammatical teeth. But they resulted in today's standards.
Read Shakespeare. It positively teems with usage that is no longer correct. In The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Proteus refers to 'mine eyen'. Today, we would say 'my eyes'. To use 'mine' is no longer correct. And 'eyen' was then the dual form for 'eye' - when speaking of precisely two of them, the word was 'eyen'. Now it's just eyes, because as the Germanic plural form of adding 'en' became rarer and rarer, people simply assumed (mistakenly) that any plural of 'eye' must follow the then-increasingly common English practice of making a plural my adding an 's'. There are countless examples of this.
Just consider the apostrophe. It entered the English language in the 16th century, and English seems to have survived just fine for all those previous centuries without it. Initially, it was used solely to indicate missing letters. Then it was adopted to show both possession and plural forms. The latter use has mostly, but not entirely, died out. At some point the possessive form 'it's' saw the apostrophe discarded, to avoid confusion with the otherwise identical contraction of 'it is'. Oh, and when it jumped from English to French, 'apostrophe' was pronounced in the French fashion, 'ap-o-STROPH'. That, too, has changed, entirely because English speakers brought their English assumptions to the word in print and assumed that the second syllable would be stressed and that the 'e' would not be silent.
I have no doubt that every single one of the aforementioned changes were met by people gnashing their grammatical teeth. But they resulted in today's standards.
Languages and words obviously change over time, but I can never see using an apostrophe to form a plural being correct. It's more an example of being sloppy.
Languages and words obviously change over time, but I can never see using an apostrophe to form a plural being correct. It's more an example of being sloppy.
Just to get into the spirit of English (or any language) as evolving, my perception is that English is evolving away from usage of apostrophes as possessive formers, and towards what is the currently accepted grammatical standard. I think that illiteracy plus improved communications via Internet is merely showing how illiterate we always were.
It's just that we type more now than back then.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
