A play by dalovindj:
I obviously have toomuch time on my hands.
DaLovin’ Dj
HAHAHA.
I am no expert on grammar, but I do pay attention to common grammar and spelling. Whenever I type an email or a post, I always review it before I send it. I’m embarrassed to say that my spelling, which used to be stellar, has begun to lapse. I guess those brain cells have better things to keep track of.
In high school I had a crumby job at the local library, right next to the high school. One shift on a weekend, while reshelving books, I ran into my English teacher. Contrary to the mold, this English teacher was really cool. She “forced” us to read the cool novels that directly or indirectly dealt with death, sex, and drugs. She was checking out a periodical about grammar. Now, this was before the Internet (Internet is always capitalized, BTW, because it is always proper.), and the book that she was checking out was a catalog of all of the changes in grammar over the last year. What? Changes in grammar? Apparently, she informed me, there is some official group of English Scholars that get together and debate the use of English grammar. Whenever they come to an agreement on a small change that should occur, they document it. And then they publish all of these changes in an annual periodical. Now, don’t ask me the title of this periodical or the name of this group. This was a five minute conversation over ten years ago. None of these changes are ever earth shattering, or stuff you would even see in a typical high school English book. For instance, when you put something in parenthesis, and then need to put a parenthesis inside of that parenthesis, they debate the order of the different containers to use: ([{|. They also debate the proper times to use bullet points, and what each format of bullet point should signify, and the proper way to format sub-bullet points, and so on.
I, too, am sick of correcting peoples’ use of the apostrophe (notice the proper use of the plural possessive apostrophe). It took me months to convince my wife of the difference between “its” and “it’s”. And I am sick and tired of seeing “your” in place of “you’re”. But I have some serious questions about grammar that I hope someone here can answer.
-
What is the proper way to use a single set of parenthesis? Is it a full sentence inside the parenthesis, so there is capitalization and a period? If it is at the end of a sentence does it come before or after the sentence’s period?
-
If you end a sentence with an abbreviation: “He received his P.H.D…”, do you duplicate the period?
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And semicolons. Please, someone enlighten me with the proper way to use one. Does it close a statement that comes after a colon?
-
When quoting someone, is the following example correct?
Example: He said, “I shall be home shortly.” So I followed him home.
I really think that the biggest enemy of grammar is the Internet. People get lazy, start to use l33t as a shorthand, and then it is all over.
One last thing. I hate it when S’s are substituted by Z’s, and when GH’s are substituted by E’s: “tonite.” When did this happen?
Don’t even get me started on semicolons; they infuriate the hell out of me.
I’ve seen two pants-crappingly bad ones this summer, both coincidentally involving the word “own.”
The first was a sign outside a small stadium where some sort of music festival for kids was being held. A couple of signs advertised:
See kids make
there one
instruments
There was probably some inappropriate apostrophe usage in there, but in my shock at the atroshis speeling errers I must’ve taken such mundane mistakes for granted.
The second comes from a yearbook page dedicated to a teacher in the reserves who was just called to active duty. For the first couple lines it appeared to be the only respectable page in the sloppily produced annual, until:
Gaaah!
Sadly, this wasn’t. 
It would have been correct if you were using “people” as a singular noun, but you weren’t in this context. “People”, thus used, is already plural, and the s does not pluralise it but only, with the apostrophe, denotes possession. You should have typed people’s.
Here’s hoping I can keep that bastard Gaudere out of this post. I counted three distinct attempts to get in on the action, but I think I got 'em all. (Three? A fourth one tried to muscle in on the preceding sentence alone.)
I’ll leave your serious questions for later.
I dont sea how people’s can git sew werkd up; specially about some thing unportant lik langage and punctuality.
The worst offenders are the people who don’t know the difference between apostrophes and quotation marks, as in:
‘N’ (not ‘N or N’).
There should be two apostrophes, and they both should look like little 9s, not 6s.
No. In fact, you can leave the periods off completely if you want, only having the period that you’d be using at the end of a sentence anyway.
If, however, the person with the PHD prefers that you put periods in between all the letters of PHD, then you do, and if that’s the case, you don’t add the extra period after the last period in “D.” (You don’t do “P.H.D…”)
I’m studying a lot of this stuff for a course I’m taking (which is very anal-retentive about a lot of this, so I am trying to unlearn a lot of bad habits!!) but of course that does not mean that there are alternative ways of doing it, or differing points of view. But what I’ve been taught seems to be a well-established way, so I’ll be sticking with it until they change the “rules” again… 
Argh. I meant to write: “but of course that does not mean that there are not alternative ways of doing it…”
I would like to point out, it isn’t completely easy to use apostrophes correctly. For instance I forgive anyone who screws up possessives of multiple people who’s names end in ‘s’, etc. But if in doubt, leave it out. Missing an apostrophe looks like a typo. Adding one makes you look like a moron.
Are you joking, or am I being stupid? Doesn’t PhD stand for Doctor of Philosophy (more or less)? I can see “PhD”, “PhD.”, “Ph.D.”, even “PHD.” perhaps… but surely the abbreviation is a matter of your style? I can’t tell you to address me as “M…r. Shade” can I? Tell me I’m being whooshed.
The real question here, of course, is whether that should have (should of? 
) been
FRANK’S GUN AND PAWN
or
FRANK’S GUN AND PORN
Inquiring minds want to know
I’m studying how one should type it professionally (as in, a secretary typing a letter). The books of style I am studying state repeatedly that the individual’s preference always takes precedence over the book of style’s “rules.” So, I’m guessing that if a doctor or a company specifically wanted their name, rank or company name punctuated a certain way, the secretary who is typing the correspondence to them or about them is supposed to punctuate it the way that they prefer.
But no, I can’t expect you to punctuate my name “yose.emit’ebabe,” because that’s bizarre. But if you were my secretary, then yeah, that probably would be part of your job, absurd as it is.
OK, I wasn’t sure how far personal preference went
But yes, you are entirely right that if I’m your secretary I’ll type it how you like if you want me to. After all, if you know I think it’s wrong, and are paying me to type it anyway, it’s your decision.
Thanks for clearing it up.
I actually had to read this twice before I noticed that the apostrophes were missing.
See how well it works?
Just saw another one yesterday at the fair:
“REGISTRATION FOR
LLAMA’S AND ALPACA’S
IN HERE”
People alread thinkwe’re a buncha hicks, and here you go giving them fuel to add to the fire!!!
Just saw another one yesterday at the fair:
“REGISTRATION FOR
LLAMA’S AND ALPACA’S
IN HERE”
People alread think we’re a buncha hicks, and here you go giving them fuel to add to the fire!!!
Into which you enter your PIN number, of course.
Come back, Chris Farley; all is forgiven…
Perhaps it was actually owned by Harriet, an aspiring hairstylist?
(In which case, a comma would have been appreciated.)