[OT] Spelling

[Graham Samuel]

On Mon, 22 Mar 2004 22:42:33 -0600,"Ken Ray" <kray at sonsothunder.com> wrote:

>[...]


>   "it's" means "it is"
>
>   "its" means "belonging to it"
>------
>   An apostrophe usually implies possession (or is used in a contraction),
>and is not used for making a singular into a plural, so:
>
>   "television's" = belonging to a television
>
>   "televisions"  = more than one television
>------
>
>And note that these things are not confined to programming; one quick drive
>through my town where I see signs that say: "Hold your partys here" (for a
>karaoke bar), or "We use all cloth shammy's" (for a car wash) has urged me
>to make this post. Sorry for being a bit pedantic, and I hope no one takes
>offense.

Thanks for that, Ken. Like you I'm a stickler for correct spelling but more 
particularly punctuation. Not sure if this has been noticed in the States, 
but in the UK the surprise hit in non-fiction book sales this Christmas was 
'Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation' by 
Lynne Truss , which is an extended and very funny riff on this theme. I 
recommend it. She uses the term 'stickler' a lot.

Graham


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Graham Samuel / The Living Fossil Co. / UK & France