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I was having a conversation with someone the other day about the apostrophe (yes, it was one of my more interesting conversations, I know!). She was writing a paper for university on it and whether or not it has any place in the English written language.
Now I'm no scholar, but years ago someone corrected me on my apostrophe usage. Being stubborn (also known as being male) I decided to research how they should be used so I couldn't be corrected again (or even so I could become the aggressor!).
Now the argument for abolishing the apostrophe is that as it's possible to identify when one is missing, by extension; it's possible to read without their usage.
This combined with the fact that there are different schools of thought as to their usage.
E.g. Is it "James' ball" or "James's ball"? (Personally I go for the second option as the first option could be misconstrued as being "The ball that belongs to all people called James", but again, we can decipher what is correct by context.
I think the biggest, and also poorest, arguement for our beloved apostrophe's abolition is that it is the least understood piece of punctuation given its relative ubiquitousness.
Am I alone in my fight to retain this tiny fleck of English scripture?
(next week: Would we like to see the re-introduction of the interrobang into British literature!?)
Now I'm no scholar, but years ago someone corrected me on my apostrophe usage. Being stubborn (also known as being male) I decided to research how they should be used so I couldn't be corrected again (or even so I could become the aggressor!).
Now the argument for abolishing the apostrophe is that as it's possible to identify when one is missing, by extension; it's possible to read without their usage.
This combined with the fact that there are different schools of thought as to their usage.
E.g. Is it "James' ball" or "James's ball"? (Personally I go for the second option as the first option could be misconstrued as being "The ball that belongs to all people called James", but again, we can decipher what is correct by context.
I think the biggest, and also poorest, arguement for our beloved apostrophe's abolition is that it is the least understood piece of punctuation given its relative ubiquitousness.
Am I alone in my fight to retain this tiny fleck of English scripture?
(next week: Would we like to see the re-introduction of the interrobang into British literature!?)
)
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