Apostrophe plural's

[s1m0n]

I've given up trying to correct people. Two colleagues at work do scare quotes, and they're not listening or learning. They're both over 30 so I can't blame recent drops in educational standards. I think they are just stupid.

Scare quotes aren't automatically wrong. Like any other mode of writing, they can be mis~ or overused (mostly the latter) but they exist because they do something that no other way of writing the phrase can do.

[emmline]

I've given up trying to correct people. Two colleagues at work do scare quotes, and they're not listening or learning. They're both over 30 so I can't blame recent drops in educational standards. I think they are just stupid.

Scare quotes aren't automatically wrong. Like any other mode of writing, they can be mis~ or overused (mostly the latter) but they exist because they do something that no other way of writing the phrase can do.

I would agree. When they're used with ironic intention it's not necessarily a bad thing.
Here is an example of a silly usage:
I used to pass a house on my kid's former school-commute route. They had one of those little shingle signs on a post out by the road, announcing who lived there. It said: The "Bensons" (not the actual name...it's slipping my mind at the moment.)
But it always caused me to wonder, with a chuckle, why were these people pretending to be the Bensons? Were they in witness protection, and their actual name was Hoffa or something?

[Cork]

OK, now that this thread has wandered slightly, but still on the matter of grammar...

Of late I've seen "you" substituted for "your", for example, you house, and I've seen this often enough to be convinced that it's not a random typo.

[djm]

I often miss hitting the "r" and end up unintentionally typing "you" instead of "your". That and the dreaded "teh". Darn Darn Darn

djm

[Denny]

that's why I use yer....

covers you're and your

[SteveShaw]

The Brits also use a different verb tense for collectives. Ex: The team ARE leaving tomorrow. In the U.S. we consider that a singular collective noun.

I regard that form as illiterate and would never use it, and I don't hear it very often.

[Lambchop]

The Brits also use a different verb tense for collectives. Ex: The team ARE leaving tomorrow. In the U.S. we consider that a singular collective noun.

I regard that form as illiterate and would never use it, and I don't hear it very often.

Disturbingly, the use of the plural with a collective noun is rampant on this board! It began not long ago and has now infiltrated the posts of those on this side of the Atlantic.

[s1m0n]

...I've seen this often enough to be convinced that it's not a random typo.

You're right. What you're seeing is a typo + spellcheck error.

[MTGuru]

The Brits also use a different verb tense for collectives. Ex: The team ARE leaving tomorrow. In the U.S. we consider that a singular collective noun.

I regard that form as illiterate and would never use it, and I don't hear it very often.

Interesting. Quirk & Greenbaum always regarded that as normal British usage, and from a descriptivist point of view. It's just an arbitrary semantic choice and emphasis, no? Either seems perfectly OK to me in context.

Then you have, for example, "The Who is a great band, but The Beatles is a better one."

[talasiga]

So what's up with this? I see it everywhere on the net. As in my cheeky thread title. The two dog's, the three cat's. Since when did the difference between the written plural and possessive become so commonly muddled? To my eye, the possessive force of the apostrophe is so strong, I could never mistake the two. And honestly, I see this much more commonly from UK writers (uh, writer's) than elsewhere, and not just purveyors (uh, purveyor's) of textspeak.

Is there a wave of orthographic mis-generalization - a pernicious plague of peppering particularly inappropriate apostrophes - sweeping the sceptered isles (uh, isle's) that the rest of us should know about?

I think that is worse than writing certain abbreviations with a full stop. Mr, Mrs, St (for saint) come to mind.

[talasiga]

The Brits also use a different verb tense for collectives. Ex: The team ARE leaving tomorrow. In the U.S. we consider that a singular collective noun.

I regard that form as illiterate and would never use it, and I don't hear it very often.

Interesting. Quirk & Greenbaum always regarded that as normal British usage, and from a descriptivist point of view. It's just an arbitrary semantic choice and emphasis, no? Either seems perfectly OK to me in context.

Then you have, for example, "The Who is a great band, but The Beatles is a better one."

I agree with singular collective noun thing and I agree with Steve Shaw. However there are exceptions. IT is both better American and Brit. English to say,
"The sheep are in the paddock" than to say "The sheep is in the paddock" unless you are referring to only one sheep.

In the case of the Beatles, John was a Beatle, Ringo was a Beatle, Paul was a Beatle and George was a Beatle. Together they are The Beatles, a band which is better than The Who. The Who may have been a great band but The Beatles will always be a greater one.

[Innocent Bystander]

One common "homophone" (it's not a homophone where I come from, but apparently it is, where I live now) is
the word "draw" for "drawer".

"Free to collect - chest of draws" .....Yek!

[KateG]

Actually "chest of draws" is the historical term. Not sure when a "draw" became a "drawer" - I would guess sometime in the mid 19th century, but 18th century New England furniture inventories and the like refer to chests with "draws."

History aside, I agree, in today's vernacular "draw" sounds illiterate.

[Lambchop]

One common "homophone" (it's not a homophone where I come from, but apparently it is, where I live now) is
the word "draw" for "drawer".

"Free to collect - chest of draws" .....Yek!

Hah! Would you prefer what we have here? Chester draws?

Chester draw. Good cond. $50

[SteveShaw]

The Brits also use a different verb tense for collectives. Ex: The team ARE leaving tomorrow. In the U.S. we consider that a singular collective noun.

I regard that form as illiterate and would never use it, and I don't hear it very often.

Interesting. Quirk & Greenbaum always regarded that as normal British usage, and from a descriptivist point of view. It's just an arbitrary semantic choice and emphasis, no?

Hmm. You get a lot of this kind of talk these days. I try to avoid it. Using short words is good, though I do know lots of long ones. I sometimes write sentences that are a bit too long and intricate.

Then you have, for example, "The Who is a great band, but The Beatles is a better one."

Frankly, these examples will enlighten no-one. "The Who" is an intrinsically singular epithet, whereas "The Beatles" is clearly plural, but no matter. Sometimes you have to be guided by what sounds elegant or inelegant, and by very little else. "The Beatles is a great band" is completely unacceptable except to those possessed of moronic obduracy, though note how I managed to say "The Beatles is..." above, perfectly acceptably. "The Who is a great band" is almost as bad, though not quite. Clearly, most people with an iota of common sense and an unwillingness to draw unnecessary attention to themselves would say "The Who are a great band." Interestingly, if we happen to be talking about our national football team, we would be likely to say "England have qualified for the World Cup finals" (I wish). Were you to say "England has qualified..." it would raise few hackles, though I believe the former is the more commonly-used construction. Truth to tell, we are dabbling in an area in which colloquialism, or simply the vernacular, holds sway. We shouldn't confuse this with what is required of good writing, and even then we ought to be considering whether we mean good writing for a scientific learned journal, a novel or merely an internet discussion forum. The best writers are those comfortable in any genre. And those who write clear English without a hint of showing off. And those who can confidently break the rule about using "and" as I've just done twice. And no comma between "done" and "twice" (a common American fallacy). And that's three times now. No, four...