I am only sending this to the list only because Michael sent his question to
the list. If you are not interested, please just ignore this.
Whilst there are rules of grammar, it is best to stick to them, otherwise we
get confused. I think English is silly for having a s at the end of a word to
indicate so many different things. Apostrophe is correctly also used for a
shortening. However this is overdone and the problem is that by using 's for
shortening, it gets confusing. The evidence being that people are obviously
confused. I think the worst offenders, who should know better, are TV
newsreaders. It is necessary to have programs such as the apostrophe
preservation society to try and keep things correct.
In regard to Michael's suggestion: what's for what is, is as follows, take for
example that John's hat is correct for describing the hat that belongs to John
(not that John is a hat) but John's sick for John is sick is wrong and
confusing and then John's been unwell for John has been unwell make it even
more confusing. Really the 's for shortening should only apply to it's for it
is. Even that is confusing because for any other word an 's means possessive as
in belong to it. The only way out of the problem is for people to always think
about why the s is there and always use the words is and has in full.
I have written part of this in italics to make the quotes clearer. However
sadly the font change will not show after going through B-A.
Philip
|
