A bunch of Apostrophe's

Mr Tea

Mr Tea

Registered
Did you notice the misused apostrophe in the title? Of course you did! Unless you are the person who penned the recent 'New Year Update!' mailout to MACOSX.COM members, in which case you might well have missed it.

Sorry to be a pedant, but the phrase "Lot's of great people, all fanatical about Mac's" should not have any apostrophes in it. The only place you need an apostrophe before the final 's' is the possessive form (showing that something 'belongs' to someone or something else - eg, "Jim's Macs"; "The Mac's USB port").

Some authorities (the NYT) consider it acceptable to place an apostrophe in a plural when a set of initials is being pluralised (eg, DVD's, WMD's) citing legibility as the reason for this deeply questionable practice, but at least they are consistent in their usage. A phrase like "Lot's of rumors" has no punctuational logic at all - if you're going to stick an apostrophe in "lot's", then at least go the whole hog and stick one in "rumors" as well.

This has been a public service announcement.
 
HEAR HEAR!

A man after my own pedantic, anally retentive heart! ::love:: ::love:: ::love:: But where do you stand on the thorny issue of the Oxford Comma?
 
A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.
"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."
The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.
"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

From the jacket of Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The zero tolerance approach to punctuation by Lynne Truss.

Should be required reading by ANYONE who sends out email broadcasts. Especially soccer coaches and programmers.

Amazon.com

G.
 
Gerard McLean said:
From the jacket of Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The zero tolerance approach to punctuation by Lynne Truss.
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I once made the mistake of reading that book in a café. I was asked to leave by a waiter who said that my laughing out loud was disturbing the other patrons!
 
To my eternal chagrin, CaptainQuark, I was entirely unaware of the term 'Oxford Comma' until I read your reply to my post. Fortunately, this is 2005, I am online, and there is Google. Within seconds, I had access to 54,988,046,221 potential sources of information with which to rectify my ignorance (truly we live in an age of wonders); I made straight for the horse's mouth, where I found a clear (if somewhat partisan) explanation.

So, in answer to your question, yes: I wholeheartedly embrace the Oxford Comma (but sometimes have to wash my hands afterwards).
 
Mr Tea… I'm disappointed! You bad, bad man! The Oxford Comma is an evil, wicked and nasty phenomenon, the use of which should be punishable by death. It is, in fact, almost as evil a crime as splitting the infinitive!

:D
 
CaptainQuark said:
You bad, bad man!
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What!? *splutter* Parentheses at dawn, sir!

You can take away my livelihood, sell my family into slavery, but I will never, never accept that the Oxford Comma should be universally proscribed.

While such a comma would be extraneous, egregious even, in simple constructions such as "ham, egg, and chips", I am entirely certain that confusion (and, quite possibly, indigestion) would result if the final comma were to be lost from "aperitifs, seafood bisque, wild Scottish smoked salmon dressed with lemon and coriander sauce, and egg custard".

Linguistic sophistication sometimes requires a level of fine-tuning that only the Oxford Comma can provide – although I accept that those who live a simple, monosyllabic intellectual life are probably better off without it.

Despite your unseemly suggestion that I should face execution without appeal for defending this unfairly maligned sub-spieces, I feel that I owe you a debt of gratitude for bringing the matter to my attention. I shall make it my business to use at least one a day from now on, constructing lists of such byzantine complexity that only a well-placed 'Oxford' can render them comprehensible, and that's a promise.

:)
 
If written correctly, the Oxford comma is never needed. If a sentence has a possibility of being less than crystal clear, it should be rewritten. Yes, I'm a grammar and spelling Nazi myself, though I do confess to a lapse here and there.
 
Oh I do like to discuss such delicate issues with a person who obviously DOES have a clue about that of which he speaks!

As a designer, typesetter and copy editor of books, I have this argument fairly often with authors who, while experts in their own particular fields, are often only semi-literate. It is unfortunate, though, that I am trying to piece together a valid argument against such an abomination at the end (for us UK types – I notice that the former colonials across the pond are waking up, though) of a long and tiring day of dispensing invaluable advice to my Mac-using colleagues on this eminent forum, as I am struggling even to remember my own name, and can't think of the perfect, killer argument to put my point indisputably across.

(Bung a couple of Oxford Commas into THAT lot and see if it makes sense!) :p

I'm glad to see that you have not, at least, split the infinitive – or am I just tempting fate?
 
Ooops! ::ha:: A quick glance at your profile after having posted my most recent outburst, tells me that I may have offended you – an 'author/illustrator' – by calling authors illiterate. No offence intended. :D
 
I not stupid. :D

But I do find it ironic that apostrophe was capitalized (or capitalised for you non-zee/zed fans out there) in the title of this thread complaining about poor grammar.

My thinking is if you can leave something out, be it a comma, other punctuation of even an extra word (such as "that") without sacrificing the meaning, you should do so. Brevity and conciseness of thought without all of the "extra-strength, free and complimentary, new and improved, silly and redundant" verbosity that makes up too much of the damn language these days (daze?).
 
CaptainQuark said:
I once made the mistake of reading that book in a café. I was asked to leave by a waiter who said that my laughing out loud was disturbing the other patrons!
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You were probably pausing inappropriately long between laughs. Or perhaps you paused just before the last laugh of the chapter, making that laugh an Oxford laugh. You should perhaps re-order your laughing and pausing as to make your laughing meaning crystal clear.

I find it amusing that nothing quite sparks up a discussion board like the use or misuse of the English language.
 
crap,, now ah have t'git a dickshunary t'see whut all these trimenjus wo'ds mean, as enny fool kin plainly see
 
I was asked to leave by a waiter who said that my laughing out loud was disturbing the other patrons!
Click to expand...

Similar story:

Some years back when I was in college, I took a summer job doing data-entry at a clinic. The lunch room at the clinic had a book-lending shelf; people brought in paperbacks and left them there for others to read at their leisure. So one day while eating my brown-bag lunch, I picked up "Side Effects" by Woody Allen and began to read.

Several times I nearly laughed my ham-and-cheese out through my nose. I tried to keep my laughter down, but it was very difficult. I did finally attract some attention and was questioned about who I was and what I was reading. As a temp, they didn't immediately recognize me.


In fact, as I recall it was a mental-health clinic..... :D
 
bobw said:
crap,, now ah have t'git a dickshunary t'see whut all these trimenjus wo'ds mean, as enny fool kin plainly see
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j00r a11 †3h 5uxx0rz!1!!!1!!!1!~! 1 b3 4 1337 h4xx0r!!!1!!!1!!!11!!one!!

:D
 
CaptainQuark said:
I'm glad to see that you have not, at least, split the infinitive – or am I just tempting fate?
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I didn't want to needlessly antagonise you. Oops. ::ha::
Randman said:
I do find it ironic that apostrophe was capitalized (or capitalised for you non-zee/zed fans out there) in the title of this thread complaining about poor grammar.
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Good catch – after a fashion. In truth I should have capitalised 'bunch' as well, seeing as it was the title (but not 'of', of course).
:rolleyes:
 
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