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Germans decry influence of English as 'idiot's apostrophe' gets approval

theguardian.com

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Re: Germans decry influence of English as 'idiot's apostrophe' gets approval

#21

Post by Semaphor »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #13
theandrewbailey wrote: post #2

> The Deppenapostroph is not to be confused with the English greengrocer’s apostrophe, when an apostrophe before an ‘s’ is mistakenly used to form the plural of a noun (“a kilo of potato’s”). Grocer's apostrophes annoy me, along with words like "advices" (advice is an abstract noun and can't be plural, like "happiness") and "learnings" (use "lessons" instead).

Those plural forms are sometimes referred to as European continental dialect of English and do not raise questions here. If we, Europeans have to use English as lingua franca, we can and we will adapt it to our needs same way as Americans, Afro-Americans or Indians did. So my advice: just get used to it. Edit: cultural possession of language is nonsense, it belongs to all speakers, native and non-native alike. German…

I had never heard of that, but Wikipedia has similar examples in "Euro English" [0], though there it is because similar words exist with s in other languages. I wonder if something like "advices" exists in another language?

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_English#Inflection

Re: Germans decry influence of English as 'idiot's apostrophe' gets approval

#23

Post by mkesper »

ttyprintk wrote: post #11

If the cost of this is to look utterly stupid, who in Germany would sincerely coddle a small number of English-first obsessives? Is the story here that Germans feel better about taking a stand when they’re told they have a choice?

It's simply giving up resistance against a widespread usage. Adds more confusing rules though as "Eva's Brille" still is considered wrong (not a name itself).

Re: Germans decry influence of English as 'idiot's apostrophe' gets approval

#24

Post by t0mas88 »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #13
theandrewbailey wrote: post #2

> The Deppenapostroph is not to be confused with the English greengrocer’s apostrophe, when an apostrophe before an ‘s’ is mistakenly used to form the plural of a noun (“a kilo of potato’s”). Grocer's apostrophes annoy me, along with words like "advices" (advice is an abstract noun and can't be plural, like "happiness") and "learnings" (use "lessons" instead).

Those plural forms are sometimes referred to as European continental dialect of English and do not raise questions here. If we, Europeans have to use English as lingua franca, we can and we will adapt it to our needs same way as Americans, Afro-Americans or Indians did. So my advice: just get used to it. Edit: cultural possession of language is nonsense, it belongs to all speakers, native and non-native alike. German…

The Dutch may have some "rights" to adapt English. They're #1 in non-native English proficiency for 5 years in a row and surpassed Canada (considered native speakers) on overall English proficiency some years ago.

One point of debate is that English in the Netherlands has become mostly American English over the last decades due to media influence. While originally "school English" in the Netherlands was British English.

Re: Germans decry influence of English as 'idiot's apostrophe' gets approval

#27

Post by ben_w »

raverbashing wrote: post #5
theandrewbailey wrote: post #2

> The Deppenapostroph is not to be confused with the English greengrocer’s apostrophe, when an apostrophe before an ‘s’ is mistakenly used to form the plural of a noun (“a kilo of potato’s”). Grocer's apostrophes annoy me, along with words like "advices" (advice is an abstract noun and can't be plural, like "happiness") and "learnings" (use "lessons" instead).

There is no more misguided use of an apostrophe than to use it to "create a pronoun's possessive" as using "it's" in place of "its" Do you also write "he's" and "she's" (as possessive pronouns)? No? Then it's "its".

"He's got a head shaped like a massive orange"

"Who?"

"Xtk'act'sbu"

"Oh no, not the Klingon cosplayer!"

Re: Germans decry influence of English as 'idiot's apostrophe' gets approval

#28

Post by Semaphor »

mattferderer wrote: post #20

Made me think of this old joke that's been on HackerNews, Reddit, etc for years: The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that wou…

As a German, I must say this is very well done. It went from clear English, over me having to think about every word, to clear English again (though only if I read it out loud)

Re: Germans decry influence of English as 'idiot's apostrophe' gets approval

#29

Post by waterproof »

mattmaroon wrote: post #15

In America an idiot’s apostrophe is when someone uses it to pluralize words and it too seems to be growing in use.

In the article they call that the “greengrocer’s apostrophe” as in “twelve potato’s”.
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