Grammar Gurus ?,,, - Page 3

Hundmutter, I've been taken to task on this board before for being nitpicky about grammar and spelling. I can't help it. It comes from being raised by two teachers, and being a teacher myself for a number of years.

Generally I can laugh at British humour and, being Canadian, probably 'get' it better than most people in the States do, as our culture kept more of the British culture than our neighbours to the South did. But the abuse of apostrophes, which has become so widespread in recent years, REALLY REALLY bugs my Inner Teacher, thus the grammar lesson/rant I posted above!

I am a language geek, and really delight in wordplay. I just hate to see language being misused, especially by people who grew up speaking English, and should know better.

Edited to add: My editor friend, who has been editing textbooks and scientific journals since 1986, has spoken:

 

 It's "Hundred Years' War" because you can rephrase it as "the war of a hundred years." "Of" means possession, so you need to add the possessive if you phrase it without "of.". It seems odd, but that's where it comes from.

Wow. Never would have figured that out on my own!  So, Wiki, which is frequently maligned for not being a really authoritative source of information, is CORRECT! 

And I just happened to notice the Google ad at the top of the page is for a 'Stud finder'. No, no, no, Google! When WE talk about 'studs' on THIS forum it's not THAT type of stud!

ROTFLOL!

I scored 100% . Too easy.

I think the problem with the misplaced apostrophe is the spell check or whatever...very often, when I put in a plural, this thing will change it and make the word a possessive instead of plural.

Joan, REALLY???  Wow, that's sad!

I haven't noticed the spellchecker on this site doing that.

SS, what's sad, my score of 100, or the spell check? :-)
If I don't proof before hitting send, I will usually have to edit and correct what this thing decided to change and print. A real pain in the rear.

The most common plural being changed on this site is plural 'dog's ' ....I just left it now the way it was changed after I typed "dogs" , which I just changed back to plural instead of possessive.

SS, yeah, me too.  I even went to a Grammar School (when we still
had them).   Yet another problem we share between the UK and the
North American / Canadian continent :  the increase in supposedly
'English speaking' people misusing their own language.  In this example,
we can't even blame the daft uses of the apostrophe on 'foreigners', either.  
Many of our stall-holders in street markets are still of British stock, families
going back years on their pitch, but they still do this thing with punctuation.

My errors are my own;  I don't use the spellcheck on here, though Joan
may well be right.

Just read this thread.  I feel like I need to double check every word or I will get my knuckles whacked with a ruler.