Grammar Gurus ?,,, - Page 2

What I would really, really like, would be if an Admin can fix the grammar on Gouda's thread Topic. He wrote "goe's" and it should be "goes". That has been bothering me for days now! Please, and thank-you.

Don't pick on my grammar, I do the best I am. LOL

Throw me down the stairs my pants.

Put the wall back on the phone.

cr@p...i was doing good till i assumed that you cannot have same answer on one page...so i missed total of 4....

Hexe, I missed the who/whom too. I don't recall what else, but I have to confess I did have to start the test over, when I tried to go back a page to see how many people got the who/whom wrong.

One of the other questions I blew, 24% of the people taking the test got it wrong, too.
 

SS, here in the UK we call it the "Grocers apostrophe" :

(Two pounds of apples' for x pence;  fresh asparagu's today ...)

{Tears hair out....}

Hundmutter, an apostrophe indicates possession, e.g. GROCERS' apostrophe (to correct your sentence) or a contraction, for example, "He's very tall (He is very tall) or "You're headed for a fall!" for "You are headed for a fall".

For the possessive case, if the noun (person, place or thing) the item belongs to is plural, you put it after the 's'. If it is singular, it goes before the 's'.  Thus, the above example. I assume we are talking about more than one grocer, so it is "grocers' apostrophe" rather than 'grocer's'. If you're referring to one specific item (e.g., "The car's fender was dented.") it goes before the 's'.

You never, ever, ever use an apostrophe to indicate a PLURAL!! 

So, to correct your above sentence: Two pounds of apples for x pence; fresh asparagus today...

Asparagus is one of those words that is both singular and plural, so you never take the 's' off or add one on!

Now, here's (here is) where things get tricky.

Which of these is correct?

"During the 1970's, Disco was very popular."

"During the 1970s, Disco was very popular"

Let's apply the above rules. Is it a contraction? No.  Is there possession? No, not really. The 's' is there because 1970s is plural. They covered more than one year. But there is no noun for the 1970s to 'own',

Make sense?  But this is one case where you will see many publications using the apostrophe because it just looks wrong to stick an 's' after a number!  In order to need an apostrophe, you'd have to say something like "The 1970's Disco craze made John Travolta very popular."

Here's one I was wrestling with the other night: "Hundred years' war", or "Hundred years war"

Okay, the apostrophe does go after the 's' because 'years' is definitely plural. But is there possession?  Hmmmm....

So, I thought of other examples. The Napoleonic Wars. Nope, no apostrophe. You need a noun for the wars to belong to, not an adjective (Napoleonic.) If I said "Napoleon's Wars" yep, I'd need the apostrophe.

But wait, both 'years' and 'hundred' are nouns. (If you're not sure, you ask yourself if it's the name of a person, place or thing.) So, does the war belong to 'hundred years'?

Wikipedia uses an apostrophe (Hundred Years' War). Other sites on the internet do not.

I know several people who are editors. I'm going to dump this one in their laps! 

Edited title to protect my friends pride. :)  GSD Admin

Um, that should be "Edited title to protect my friend's pride"!    Possession is involved, therefore you need an apostrophe.

If you want to edit a second time to protect your own pride, I won't hold it against you! 

Sunny, they were EXAMPLES of how it gets used, market traders
put those sorts of things on their wares (then wonder why people
are smirking as they go by);  I don't believe that is how to use
punctuation !.  I may miss the odd apostrophe in posts on here,
through typos or laziness, but honestly, you can keep your hair
in its follicles.  Perhaps British humour is wasted on PDB ?

Sunsilver I really don't care about grammar. I was way to busy chasing girls and being chased to worry about grammar.