You don't use apostophe's to plauralise anything.

I can hardly think of a more Sisyphean task than correcting grammar, spelling syntax, punctuation or other usage issues on an Internet forum. Good luck with that.

Pluraleyes:

From http://oxforddictionaries.com/page/punctuationapostrophe

Apostrophes and plural forms
The general rule is that you should not use an apostrophe to form the plurals of nouns, abbreviations, or dates made up of numbers: just add -s (or -es, if the noun in question forms its plural with -es). For example:

euro
euros
(e.g. The cost of the trip is 570 euros.)
pizza
pizzas
(e.g. Traditional Italian pizzas are thin and crisp.)
apple
apples
(e.g. She buys big bags of organic apples and carrots.)
MP
MPs
(e.g. Local MPs are divided on this issue.)
1990
1990s
(e.g. The situation was different in the 1990s.)

It's very important to remember this grammatical rule.

There are one or two cases in which it is acceptable to use an apostrophe to form a plural, purely for the sake of clarity:
    • you can use an apostrophe to show the plurals of single letters:
I've dotted the i's and crossed the t's.
Find all the p's in appear.
    • you can use an apostrophe to show the plurals of single numbers:
Find all the number 7’s.

These are the only cases in which it is generally considered acceptable to use an apostrophe to form plurals: remember that an apostrophe should never be used to form the plural of ordinary nouns, names, abbreviations, or numerical dates.
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BUT, of course, usage "rules" weren't handed down on stone tablets from above, but rather contrived over many years of speaking and writing, evolving and being codified and debated by grammarians and the rest of us. And it ain't doe evolving yet.

This entire thread is a hoot.
 
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Wow. 4 pages in 14 hours, on an absolutely non-photography-related subject. You guys never fail to amaze me. And please don't start commenting on any possible misuse of hyphens in my post...
 
Roger Hicks said:
It's all evolution, except where it's divergence and the evolution of dialects (as in the separation of Spanish and Portuguese -- "a language is a dialect with armed forces.")
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Oh...don't get me started on Spanish vs. Portuguese. :eek:


Roger Hicks said:
I quite like diversity, but I also get a bit pissed off with both Americans and English people who fail to acknowledge that the two languages do not have common rules and usages (which I have done myself above, but at least I have the original spelling on my side).
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Many people are too proud to acknowledge that they just lack a good foundation to speak and/or write their native language, and use the "language evolves" defense. One thing is to "evolve" and another to "devolve", which of course will be dismissed as "elitist" (another defense).

Since some didn't have the benefit of being taught, they didn't have the benefit of learning the difference between being corrected and being attacked.

It's been known that American English and "British" English have diverged since the former colonies went their own way, although that's not evident to those who weren't taught such facts.

The only thing one can do is realize when and who takes a correction for what it is and not as an attack and move along.

And others, recognize when a sarcastic joke is just a joke ("apostrophe's to plauralise"). Their just joke's!
 
Gabriel M.A. said:
Many people are too proud to acknowledge that they just lack a good foundation to speak and/or write their native language, and use the "language evolves" defense. One thing is to "evolve" and another to "devolve", which of course will be dismissed as "elitist" (another defense).
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Dear Gabriel,

Eminently true, but that doesn't stop the fact that language does evolve, and that many "style" manuals are unduly worshipped (or of course worshiped) by their adherents, for no very convincing reason. I've always thought it amusing that a book published in Chicago (at least, I assume it's published there) presumes to lay down rules for the use of English.

As for "Don't get me started on", yes, don't get me started on bloody "House Style". Half the "rules" in any "house style" are based on empty prejudices learned at the age of eleven from a teacher who seems sometimes to have been semi-literate. How about the argument that "further" and "farther" have different meanings, rather than being regional variations?

My own prejudice on punctuation, for example, is that to a considerable extent you can relate it to speech, and the length of pause or emphasis a given mark introduces: full stop (period) = longest and strongest; colon, next down; semi-colon, next down; comma, shortest and weakest. It's convention and convenience that we use a semi-colon instead of a colon in a list like the one in the last sentence, as the colon starts the list.

I'm not that keen on Lynne Truss but I did find Eats, Shoots and Leaves amusing.

Cheers,

R.
 
I always found this one strangely educational:

aposter3.jpg
 
Roger Hicks said:
Eminently true, but that doesn't stop the fact that language does evolve, and that many "style" manuals are unduly worshipped (or of course worshiped) by their adherents, for no very convincing reason. I've always thought it amusing that a book published in Chicago (at least, I assume it's published there) presumes to lay down rules for the use of English.
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The reasons for "language evolution" are many. But many "faults" are being dismissed as "evolution".

I remember as far back as the early 1990s, when chat rooms were all the rage: spelling and grammar were already nearly defunct (and by today's standards, they were not so bad, unfortunately). This was mainly due to the fact that the majority of users were very young kids, of course too young to know the subtleties of punctuation and spelling (I remember somebody calling Charles Manson a "cereal killer"...no, it was not meant as a joke). Not to mention that smileys had not yet been invented, and having had already noticed that tone doesn't really translate well on a glowing screen, came up with LOL, ROFL, BRB, etc. Russian spy network code, for sure...

Then, of course, being far behind the curve, the older people, who dismissed computers as either something secretaries use or something that kids use as expensive toys, once they "discovered" the Internet (like many now "discover" mobile computing and texting) they saw this Wild Wild Digital West, and reported back to their exploratory committees that spelling and punctuation didn't matter, when in fact was a symptom (well, the lack of was a symptom) of the dominant demographics.

Add a few cups of multiple recessions, decades of education budget slashing, and set the oven to schoolboard political hijacking to High, and voila, the intertoobes are an eyesore. Claiming so is taken as a personal attack by many.

This is not evolution, it's devolution.

Evolution is having new words as "e-mail" and "byte", and making "Google" and "friend" a verb (more commonly used as a gerund).
 
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