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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

#501

Post by fennecfoxy »

jasonpeacock wrote: post #182
cdumler wrote: post #172

Being an old, grey beard, it's been interesting to see language change in my lifetime. Things I learned: * Third-person singular indefinite ("he or she") can be replaced with third-person plural ("they"). Of course, a lot of changes around recognizing gender. * Final punctuation within the quote at the end of sentence (Did you just say "what?") can be placed after the final quote if the quote is for a literal string…

Singular "they" has been around for a very long time, and used naturally without anyone noticing it as unusual, until recently when there's been more gender discussion and people suddenly realizing they were already recognizing genderless people without knowing it ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

Tbf so many instances they don't use "they" but "he or she"...where my thinking is, not only is it more inclusive but it's actually easier to just use "they"?

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

#503

Post by TinkersW »

saghm wrote: post #302
crazygringo wrote: post #264

The article doesn't mention it, but am I right in assuming this basically comes from McDonald's? There are a lot of places around the world that copy the "'s" where it doesn't exist natively, but only for restaurant names or similar -- like "Bob's" is the McDonald's clone in Brazil [1]. I'm mostly curious whether "Rosi's" and "Kati's" in the article are seen by Germans as intentionally trying to look "foreign", rathe…

> The article doesn't mention it, but am I right in assuming this basically comes from McDonald's? There are a lot of places around the world that copy the "'s" where it doesn't exist natively, but only for restaurant names or similar -- like "Bob's" is the McDonald's clone in Brazil [1]. For whatever reason, it drives me crazy when I hear people refer to Pizzeria Uno as "Uno's". I've had conversations about it multi…

Uno isn't a number in english though, and you wouldn't capitalize a number, so treating it as a name seems reasonable.

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

#505

Post by xandrius »

yamazakiwi wrote: post #160
xandrius wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally marmalade is made out of citrus fruits.

Of course but it doesn't have to be. There are tons of fruits that make great tasting marmalades. After watching the Mexican episode of British Bake Off I don't care about their opinions on food authenticity.

It's not about authenticity, if it is not made out of citrus fruits it's generally called a jam.

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

#506

Post by sweezyjeezy »

lcouturi wrote: post #320
sweezyjeezy wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France has a mechanism to try to stop this: the Académie Française [1] that publishes the official French dictionary. Rather than simply recording language as its used, they do actively try to steer it. They're most well known for trying to suppress anglicisms, e.g. in the early 2000s they pushed 'courriel' instead of 'email'. That one did not work out - email is much more common, and finally entered the dictionary i…

'Courriel' was coined by French Canadian translator André Clas, not by the Académie Française. The Office québécois de la langue française successfully promoted its usage in Quebec in the 90s and the Académie Française unsuccessfully tried to do the same in France. 'Courriel' is still commonly used by French Canadians, but indeed it was never widely adopted by France. As a French Canadian, I usually use 'courriel", t…

Yes I don't think they invent words, that really would be bad.

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

#508

Post by trgn »

crazygringo wrote: post #264

The article doesn't mention it, but am I right in assuming this basically comes from McDonald's? There are a lot of places around the world that copy the "'s" where it doesn't exist natively, but only for restaurant names or similar -- like "Bob's" is the McDonald's clone in Brazil [1]. I'm mostly curious whether "Rosi's" and "Kati's" in the article are seen by Germans as intentionally trying to look "foreign", rathe…

In the sausage haus they'll spell it bleu cheese on the menu, and it's there and then that reality starts to fray.

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

#509

Post by NeoTar »

majewsky wrote: post #409
chromanoid wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say "Kati's Ecke" (urks) should look modern (and fails at that, looks like cargo cult to me) or is an unintentional error of the owner because they don't know better (maybe obligatory English lessons in school compromised the actual rules of German). I am sure it doesn't look exotic to most Germans. We actually use the apostrophe in cases where adding the possessive s is problematic. E.g. "Felix' Ecke" There…

> "Kati's Ecke" (urks) The worst I ever saw was an advertisement on a bar telling prospective patrons about the availability of "snacks´s". This is so wrong I can't even figure out how many distinct errors were made. (And yes, that's an acute accent, not an apostrophe.)

Using an apostrophe to mark a plural is often called a grocer’s apostrophe - https://www.grammar-monster.com/punctuation/using_apostrophe...

In English I’m actually ok with it for single letters or abbreviations- “your writing uses a lot of x’s and y’s”, “Can you pack away the CD’s and DVD’s”, but this is a personal quirk and definitely non-standard usage.

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

#510

Post by d3VwsX »

mikae1 wrote: post #401
chromanoid wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say "Kati's Ecke" (urks) should look modern (and fails at that, looks like cargo cult to me) or is an unintentional error of the owner because they don't know better (maybe obligatory English lessons in school compromised the actual rules of German). I am sure it doesn't look exotic to most Germans. We actually use the apostrophe in cases where adding the possessive s is problematic. E.g. "Felix' Ecke" There…

> the Deppenleerzeichen which is a space between combined words that are usually and famously not separated by space in correct German. We feel you over here in Sweden. Särskrivning (roughly “word splitting”) is a “problem” far greater than the apostrophes for us. Americentric Swedish Android keyboards are terrible offenders that happily splits words in two.

Yes. Is there ANY way good to type combined words using the default Android keyboard? I keep manually removing spaces, and then the spellchecker of course incorrectly marks the combined word as being incorrect.
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