Grammar

One the BBC today, I’ve spotted at least two punctuation errors with apostrophes. I’m out a great pedant but national websites such as the BBC really ought to check their copy before posting. That does make me cross ?

Unfortunately, the opening post had several mistakes in it too!

just imagine if there were two Rufuses...
but i guess all the Rufuses' grammar would be as spot on as the one and only best original Rufus's /Rufus' .

Rufii

As in This house belongs to the Jameses, or This is the Jameses' house
GarandmaKT
Sorry ,No! My spell/grammar checker supports me: by red -lining . "Jameses" !

James' is more concise and still implies there is more than one James

Of course, "Jim" would be even more concise and still do the same job!

Something that annoys me is the use of media for singular nouns eg the media of television. Surely media is plural , medium being singular. It’s similar with phenomena (plural of phenomenon) used as a singular as in ‘the phenomena of lightning.’
And don’t get me started on bacteria ((plural of bacterium). Even on the BBC I’ve heard ‘this bacteria’!

original Rufus's

*Welbeck" The original Rufus was an intelligent Border Collie (Jessie was his mate!) and it would be correct to say, as you have, (Watch it Jessie! that's Rufus's bone!)!

Growstuff, morality has nothing to do with apostrophes. Morality has to do with 'it depends'.
Who the owner of the name is, and the particular moral judgement each depend on the particular situation.

I was just trying to raise an interesting point about situational ethics.

The one that irritates me is "I'll" meaning unwell?? My pal does it all the time! Grrrr .....

Have a look at my Facebook Marketplace photos on a different post, they are hilarious, but cannot remember which post now?

Sometimes the use of I’ll for ill is due to predictive text if writing on an iPhone. Mine does it all the time. In fact it changed my ill to I’ll just now but luckily I noticed before posting. The same goes for lots of spellings.

Alexa

Growstuff, morality has nothing to do with apostrophes. Morality has to do with 'it depends'.
Who the owner of the name is, and the particular moral judgement each depend on the particular situation.

I was just trying to raise an interesting point about situational ethics.

I still don’t understand !

‘Practice’ and ‘Practise’.

Always annoys me when used incorrectly, often on Gransnet I have to say.

And of course one we see a lot of lately,

‘meter’ and ‘metre’.

Pet dislikes: Draw instead of drawer; of instead of have; I were instead of I was; haitch instead of aitch - I could go on, but breakfast beckons and it is taking too long to keep changing the £& predictive text!!!

Same with 'advice' and 'advise' Calendargirl

Like instead of as if : ‘It looks like it’s going to rain ’ for example instead of ‘it looks as if it’s going to rain’
And frequently in ads these days they talk of ‘electric’ instead of electricity. For example : your gas and electric bills.
Or ‘totally unique’.
I could go on.

Not forgetting ‘affect’ and ‘effect’.

Language may indeed evolve, but "of" when it should be "have" , and "stationary" (as in not moving) as opposed to "stationery" meaning notebooks, pencils etc is just not on!

Ok, the world will not stop turning, but as Mr P says, "Standards, darling, standards".

And don't get me started on those who think it's "definAtely"!

Bad grammar is exceedingly annoying but I wince when I hear people use "literally" in the wrong way. It's very common. The worst I ever heard was a sports commentator, "he's literally been handed a huge slice of luck".

oh, he's literally lost his head and kicked it over the net.

Growstuff wrote:

"It's to do with custom and practice rather than "correctness". "

But custom and practice are correctness. The use of apostrophes does usually depend on custom or practice to be judged correct .

My point is situations sometimes merit departures from custom and practice, and this is not only true of the use of apostrophes it's also true of moral issues.

I sent this card to my daughter.

www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fih1.redbubble.net%2Fimage.529721953.0458%2Fflat%2C1000x1000%2C075%2Cf.u3.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redbubble.com%2Fpeople%2Fjudyhoracek%2Fworks%2F14540458-apostrophe-man&tbnid=GLEnXN2m7qkN4M&vet=12ahUKEwi5tLigpMHrAhVP0-AKHdGdBdwQMygEegUIARCvAQ..i&docid=CKk8v_x5lj5fUM&w=1000&h=990&q=apostrophe%20man&client=safari&ved=2ahUKEwi5tLigpMHrAhVP0-AKHdGdBdwQMygEegUIARCvAQ

Some of the different spellings — advise/advice and practice/ practise, for example, are differences between UK English and US English.

Forward planning is another bugbear of mine.

‘Number’ and ‘amount’....

“A huge amount of people.....”. aargh!

I get things wrong all the time

I wish I didn't

But the dreaded apostrophe is my Nemesis. I will spend ages on a message trying to avoid having to use one

Love the card, SpringyChicken!