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Or, for that matter, a hay day. (Is that supposed to be some kind of rural celebration?)
Now I'm wondering what the correct use is. Here's what I found: "Hay day is an old saying that means an easy day, plenty of play. It was said that a horse would rather eat hay than graze all day for the same amount of feed." However, there are a lot of entries from random websites that use the word hey, as in living it up.
^^^ I continue to be amazed and appalled at the epidemic of using apostrophes for plurals. It seems to have exploded over the past few years.
Sometimes I reflect on how it came to be that, of all the letters of the alphabet and phonemes available for inflections, how did it happen that English, sparsely inflected, evolved to use the same one for
1. Plural nouns
2. Possessive nouns
3. Third person singular verbs.
"He reads John's books." Why do they all end with -S?
How and when did people cease understanding the difference between a plural and a possessive? I still don't know when (or why) this happened! Any idea?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801
^^^ I continue to be amazed and appalled at the epidemic of using apostrophes for plurals. It seems to have exploded over the past few years.
Sometimes I reflect on how it came to be that, of all the letters of the alphabet and phonemes available for inflections, how did it happen that English, sparsely inflected, evolved to use the same one for
1. Plural nouns
2. Possessive nouns
3. Third person singular verbs.
"He reads John's books." Why do they all end with -S?
I don't know. Perhaps all those old Saxons just liked to hiss.
How and when did people cease understanding the difference between a plural and a possessive? I still don't know when (or why) this happened! Any idea?
I remember my sister mentioning it back in the early '80s, I think. Then I started noticing it on my own and getting really annoyed. Maybe they stopped teaching spelling and grammar in the '70s.
With Naughty Pine if she had simply thought about it, she wouldn't have made the error. Pine has knots; everyone knows that. How could an inanimate object like PINE be naughty?
On a more sobering note, I just saw "it go's." What's their rule? Just add apostrophe S to everything?
I think what's happening now is that kids are teaching other kids to make the mistakes. They learn from each other how to do it incorrectly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by in_newengland
I remember my sister mentioning it back in the early '80s, I think. Then I started noticing it on my own and getting really annoyed. Maybe they stopped teaching spelling and grammar in the '70s.
Someone on my state forum is afraid of the possibility of a sunamie (as opposed to an earthquake). Took me awhile to figure out what that meant.
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