points by kulahan 11 hours ago | 0 comments
I would like to posit that as grammar dies, we execute the apostrophe first. Somehow, despite the simple rule of “this is never EVER used to show plurality”, it is almost exclusively used for that these days.
[–] dubya 10 hours ago
[–] kulahan 8 hours ago
Did you know 0 is not simply the number between -1 and 1? That also is irrelevant when teaching the masses! I don’t mean this to be snooty, but I hope it illustrates my point that you can emphasize something which will work extremely well for everyone in every day life.
You’re right that there are extremely rare exceptions (though even official sources like Purdue OWL and Chicago manual of style disagree on the finer points), but I will keep telling everyone you never, ever use it for plurality. I would be much happier seeing people type “there should’ve been WotLKs for users to choose between” than “I had three burger’s” on the very rare chance I see the former. I hope you’ll join me!
[–] dubya 3 hours ago
I'm not sure what you're getting at about 0, but it's a good segue. I'm a math guy, and it is not extremely rare for me to want to express something like "how many i's". The alternative punctuation, "how many is," is confusing.
A bit off topic, but how would you react to her's or their's? Not real words, but the intention is clear, and possessive.
The loss of the distinction between lose and loose is killing me though.