51–60 of 576 posts
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”.
> 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).
I would normally expect "the grocer's apostrophe" to refer to a single grocer and "the grocers' apostrophe" to refer to a plural group of grocers, which I assume is what you intended.
> 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".
-> it's putting the lotion on its skin
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the article they call that the “greengrocer’s apostrophe” as in “twelve potato’s”.
I don't know that I have ever seen that in the wild, but probably only because I refuse to accept that it exists.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the article they call that the “greengrocer’s apostrophe” as in “twelve potato’s”.
I don't know that I have ever seen that in the wild, but probably only because I refuse to accept that it exists.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 Engli…
I actually go full-descriptivist on this and it erases all the posturing. If you're a speaker of English, native or otherwise, and you say or write something purposefully and don't consider it a mistake then it's correct. Wether other people will join you in your new usage is yet undetermined but also doesn't really matter. AAVE is the perfect example of this happening large scale in the real world.
German is not that easy, either, though. Das/Der/Die is a constant source of frustration. Its never easy to remember.
When in doubt use das like half the population of Berlin.