Bugs me enormously (because I’m a pedant)
I think less of the writer (because I’m narrow-minded that way)
I do it myself and on purpose (just to screw with dickhead’s like me)
gah! I hate me!
I used to know how to use apostrophes correctly and then the internet happened. Thankfully, I almost always get this particular punctuation right. It’s colons and semi-colons and plural-possessives (oh my!) that set me to shaking in my boots. I really am trying to re-learn proper punctuation.
Anybody get stabby over quotation marks used instead of italics or underlining? “Dear og” I detest that sort of thing.
I was appalled when my child’s 1st grade teacher had a list of arctic animals they were studying on the board, “penguin’s, polar bear’s, seal’s…” etc.
Rhymers are never tempted to do anything. We DO the tempting. If I wished to drive you all crazy I wouldn’t faff about it; I’d just open the gates to – well, never mind. Mika’s still reading the thread and even though she just SHOT ME IN THE GODDAMN SHOULDER I still love her too much to risk her sanity by mentioning the Thing and the Guy and the Place that Must Not Ever Be Named.
I hate it, it makes me think less of the writer, and I am extremely embarrassed when I realize I did not proofread my emails, texts, or posts from the iPad or my phone and see that the machine autocorrected me incorrectly and I didn’t catch it. Then I think less of me.
Forming plurals is something I learned in fucking second grade. Then they taught it to us again in third grade. Another couple of days were devoted to the subject in fourth grade. Then, we got a nice review of the rules in fifth grade.
I don’t see how some people are so stupid that they can’t even remember one of the most basic rules in the English language. Maybe we need to start sending people back to third grade.
I barely managed not to bludgeon her.
I always notice mistakes like this, but my response depends largely on context.
If you’re a person I know slightly and your e-mail to me, while well-written and coherent, contains an apostrophe mistake of this kind? Meh. I notice, but everybody makes mistakes. I’m not going to get all crazy.
However. I’m an editor by training and currently a hiring manager for technical editors. This kind of mistake in that context tanks my opinion of you, in a way that’s pretty hard to recover from.
Blimey. Did you mention it to the teacher? I guess it would depend on the situation. I think I would have been bursting to say something.
What really hacks me is that you see cat’s as a plural but you never see dog’s as a plural.
If anything correlates with semi-literates preferring dogs to cats, that would be it right there.
I’d be appalled, too.
Penguin’s are antarctic animals.
I didn’t, but I was all passive-aggressive and when I was alone in the classroom once I erased all the apostrophes. Gah!
Jesus, what a whiner. It’s just a little gunshot wound. Sheesh.
I believe Trader Joe’s (or is it Whole Foods? Or both?) also use the proper “10 items or fewer.” For whatever reason, the correct construction bugs the shit out of me. I like my “10 items or less.”
Nice. Stealth correction.
Writing something at work that involves multiple things that are abbreviated. DVDs is a good example… or just plain IDs, as a plural abbreviation of ‘Identification’. It doesn’t look entirely correct with the naked s – and it doesn’t look entirely correct with the extra apostrophe.
Yeah, I checked off a couple of conflicting choices. So what?
I actually spent a good portion of my college application essay ranting about the misuse of the apostrophe, especially in cases of pluralization. In retrospect, that essay strikes me as misguided and a poor subject for an introductory paper. However, my interview was with a member of the English department faculty and she appeared to love it. So, phew.
Nowadays, I’m only bothered if it’s something that should have really gone through an editor at some point or if some pluralizations are correct and others have apostrophes. How do you remember the rule for 2 items and then flub it for the 3rd?
(I took my username from Eats, Shoots, and Leaves which is a real shame because a lot of my opinions have changed drastically since I read it.)
Yeah, I was always taught that you always pluralize abbreviations, such as DVD, with an apostrophe. For example, “I got four DVD’s for Christmas.” I just googled and found out I was taught wrong.:smack: I hate when that happens.
It will bother me to omit the apostrophe, especially when I pluralize something like PM (for private message), but I guess I will get over it. “Did he just say he has private messages, or did he say he has premenstrual syndrome?”
I also struggle with and get irritated when people try to make my name possessive, because my name ends with an s. So let’s pretend my name was Willis. Is it, “That’s Willis’ dog!” or “That’s Willis’s dog!” I prefer to make it possessive with an 's, because that’s the way I pronounce it (with an extra s sound at the end.)
Obviously, I’m no writer, and I can get away with that most of the time as an engineer. The grammar and spelling people irritate me as much as I probably irritate them with my poor writing, even though I do try to get it correct.
It’s one of my biggest [del]pet peeve’s[/del] pet peeves, along with forgotten apostrophes and mixing up homophones. Drives. Me. CRAZY.
It’s not wrong. It’s just a matter of style. The apostrophe-s style for numerals and abbreviations is not uncommon. I’m not exactly sure why you’d mix up PMs with PMS, though.