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Solving your writing problems since 1998! |
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The Write Way Friday 13 July 2001 Greetings, Out of all the questions I receive each week, the majority seem to focus on that seemingly innocuous little squiggle - the apostrophe. The latest query (from Harv Craven) kept us both happily amused for several emails. It seems there has been a mini-cyberbattle raging about the use of apostrophes in acronyms (is it two VCRs or two VCR's?) One of the combatants produced this fabulous image: " ... some writers of English ... liberally shake a container of apostrophes over their sentences, perhaps in the hope that some of them will land in the correct locations and the rest just slide off." In the Old Days, when you wrote by dipping the end of a feather in a pot of ink (OK ... a quill then), you would have had a shaker of fine sand that you shook over your page to blot the ink - and I have this wonderful vision of writers around the world with their little silver containers of apostrophes, shaking them with gay abandon over everything they write ... Because apostrophes seem to be the bane of so many, I thought it would be a Good Idea to spend a bit of time getting to know them. There's an old saying ... "know thy enemy" ... so gird up your loins ... and once more unto the breach, dear friends! The apostrophe has two main functions ... just two ... count 'em ... one ... two: The first is to show omission of letters and the second is to show possession. We'll look at the first this week and the second next week (no, By Golly, let's be rebels and look at the second this week and the first next week!) Using the apostrophe to indicate ownership It's easy when you write about the dog's dinner; the man's stunningly beautiful wife, Lavinia; Lavinia's personal trainer, Lars, and so on. It starts to get tricky (for Lavinia's husband and for us) when we get to Lars. Is Lavinia Lars' best client? Could it be that she is Lars's ticket to that new Porsche he's had his eye on for some time?
If he was plain old Bill there wouldn't be a problem - she would be Bill's best client and the ticket to Bill's new Porsche. But then, knowing Lavinia, if he was "plain old" Anyone, she wouldn't be interested ... For Lars and anyone else whose name ends in S, you generally let your ear be your guide. If Lars's ticket sounds awkward, feel free to omit the final S. The only rule in this case is that you must (MUST) be consistent. You can't have Lars' rippling muscles then Lars's boyish charm, well, not if you know what's good for you. (More on this in a moment.) We'll assume (rightly, as it happens) that Lavinia is a Lady Who Lunches, and when she does lunch with her friends, they visit a women's club. It's not a womens' club. When a word is made plural by changing some of its interior bits, you don't make it doubly plural in the possessive. When an additional syllable is pronounced in the possessive, add apostrophe S: so you'd have the ladies going to their tennis class before lunch, and Lavinia being very chuffed when her coach, Mr Harris, told her she was the class's best player. Although it's difficult to know whether Mr Harris's opinion is very reliable - he's a push-over for a pretty face and a flash of a shapely thigh. (This is where your ear takes over - Mr Harris' opinion just doesn't sound right - the natural inclination is to add another syllable: Mr Harris's.) When writing about joint ownership, possession is shown only on the last noun, but where individual ownership exists, possession is shown on each noun. Lavinia and her husband's new yacht was the venue for a fancy-dress party. Lavinia's and Raoul's sailor suits were a hit with their guests. T'riffic Tip The very best way to remember when to use the possessive apostrophe - in any circumstance - is to substitute the word 'of' ... The women's club - the club of the women Lavinia's personal trainer - the personal trainer of Lavinia Her husband's new yacht - the yacht of her husband This is also the way you test for those really tricky ones: three months' experience - the experience of three months So, if you're tempted to use an apostrophe but you can't substitute "of" ... then leave it out! Banana's only $2 kilo - the ... of ... ? ... @#! All these shop's sell clothes - the ... of ... ? ... @#! The best place's to eat - the ... of ... ? ... @#! OK ... you get the message. Don't just whack in an apostrophe every time you end a word with S. Except ... Sorry to do this to you - when I promised that there were only two uses for the apostrophe. You also use an apostrophe to show the plural form of letters and numbers: Lavinia is one of those people who insists that you dot all the i's and cross all the t's. Her memos to her house-keeper are filled with what-to-do's. She's always telling people to count 1,2,3's. (Sorry, I couldn't think of any example using numbers.) This makes sense, because you have to be able to indicate that you're referring to the isolated letter or number. Enough apostrophes for one week - next week we'll look at using the apostrophe to show omission (and solve the VCR problem). Now get your Apostrophe FAQ ... If you've been trying to contact me by email these past couple of days and have received a "user unknown" message - my apologies. More 'technical' hitches' I've been told. Please re-send any messages, since it seems any email sent to me during The Troubles is still out there with Will Robinson and the dastardly Dr Smith. This week's quiz: Choose a word from the list to match each definition below: discomfit, venal, tenacity, disingenuous, apostate, laconic, welter, turbid, lachrymose, ossify 1. firmness, persistency, adhesiveness, tending to hang on 2. one who abandons long-held religious or political convictions 3. causing tears, tearful 4. turmoil; a bewildering jumble 5. to defeat, put down 6. brief, to the point, terse 7. corruptible, unprincipled 8. to turn to bone; to settle rigidly into an idea or practice, become closed-minded 9. sophisticated, artful, trying to deceive, cunning 10. muddy, having the sediment stirred up If you know anyone who would like to subscribe to The Write Way, please send them a personal invitation to join us each Friday, just cut and paste this link and email it to them: mailto:WritingTips-subscribe@yahoogroups.com These are (allegedly) actual excuse notes from parents (including original spelling) collected by Nisheeth Parekh, University Texas Medical Branch at Galveston...Please excuse Pedro from being absent yesterday. He had (diahre) (dyrea) (direathe) the shits. [Words were crossed out in the ( )'s] Please excuse Ray, Friday from school. He has very loose vowels. Please excuse Jennifer for missing school yesterday. We forgot to get the Sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it Monday, we thought it was Sunday. That last one is classic! Last week's quiz: Match a word from the list with its definition below: hirsute, taciturn, turgid, multifarious, pillory, imprecation, torpor, pariah, pique, adamant 1. an outcast, a rejected and despised person - PARIAH 2. not talkative; silent - TACITURN 3. resentment at being slighted - PIQUE 4. excessively ornate; swollen or bloated - TURGID 5. to punish, hold up to public scorn - PILLORY 6. hard and inflexible; unyielding - ADAMANT 7. varied, motley, greatly diversified - MULTIFARIOUS 8. lethargy, sluggishness, dormancy - TORPOR 9. an invocation of evil; a curse - IMPRECATION 10. hairy, shaggy - HIRSUTE MondegreensHere are some mangled lyrics (sometimes also known as mondegreens): I shot the Sheriff, but I didn't shoot him
dead you see She's got a chicken to ride The girl with colitis goes by Bald headed woman Donuts make my brown eyes blue. A mondegreen, you'll recall, is a mishearing of a popular phrase or song lyric, and the term was coined by the writer Sylvia Wright. As a child she'd heard the Scottish ballad, "The Bonny Earl of Murray" and always believed that one stanza went like this: Ye Highlands and Ye Lowlands The young Sylvia was touched by the thought of the Lady dying with her love, and was so upset when she heard the correct lyrics (They hae slay the Earl of Murray, And lay him on the green) as an adult, that she coined the word "mondegreen." We all have our favourite mondegreens as children; every Christmas, I sang with gusto that, "Shepherds washed their socks by night," and I can still remember sitting on a swing in our back garden when I was a child and singing along to that Elvis fellow's "Ah, More Sugar!" Word of the Week: Tegestologist (n) A collector of beer coasters. The species is normally male, falls within the age range of 19 to 23, and certainly does not know that it is so called. (Hall of Superior Words) Tautology of the week: classic tradition Now I just know you'll be able to use this Latin phrase this week - perhaps when you're talking to your bank manager ... Amoto quaeramus seria ludo. (Joking aside, let's turn to serious matters.) ay-MOH-toh kway-RAY-moos SAY-ree-uh LOO-doh. If you received this from a friend, click here to receive your own copy: mailto:WritingTips-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Regards, Jennifer To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to WritingTips-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com or go to the web site, at www.groups.yahoo.com/group/WritingTips, This menu will also let you change your subscription between digest and normal mode. |
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