Forum / News from the Apostrophe Protection Society
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Sally HoutmanMay 31, 04:44am“Getting your itses mixed up is the greatest solecism in the world of punctuation, No matter that you have a Ph.D. and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, ‘Good food at it’s best’, you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.”
- Lynn Truss
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Matthew RobinsonMay 31, 05:35amEverybody knows the apostrophe is the French horn of punctuation marks.
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Letitia CoyneMay 31, 05:55amBeing a poor speller and hopeless punctuationist and, being Australian, inheriting a cultural aversion to correct grammar, I probably should have chosen another career path. My bugbear, though, is the comma.
I'm proofing four mss at the moment, and I spend half of the time with each read through putting in and taking out the same set of commas.
I stand with Oscar - "I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again."
Lxx
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Sally HoutmanMay 31, 06:04am
A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons. 'Why?' asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder. 'Well, I'm a panda,' he says, at the door. 'Look it up.' The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. 'Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.'
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Letitia CoyneMay 31, 06:47am
Ho ho ho.
Commas. Whaddaya gonna do?
Grammar guides tell me that a comma is used with a conjunction joining two independent clauses - unless it is stylistically undesirable. WTF. My lovely editor advises, only use a comma if its omission will change the intended meaning of the sentence. This is all too much free choice and not enough hard and fast instruction for me.
I don't have trouble with apostrophes. I used to be annoyed by Bridget Jones's Diary but I got over that.
Somewhere, the 'don't add an s to possessive sibilants' got left behind. But surely its, whose, and theirs all go together to explain themselves. Same with there's, it's, and who's. Easy.
I need a bex and a little lie down. [Lie, lay, lain? Lay, laid, laid?]
Lxx
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Sally HoutmanMay 31, 07:07am
An English professor wrote the words: “A woman without her man is nothing.” on the chalkboard and asked his students to punctuate it correctly.
All the males in the class wrote: “A woman , without her man , is nothing.”
All the females in the class wrote: “A woman : without her , man is nothing.”
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Letitia CoyneMay 31, 07:10am
Well, the women plainly had the correct punctuation there. Even I can see that. :)
Anyone who disagrees is wrong.
Lxx
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Letitia CoyneMay 31, 07:13am
What is this thing called love?
What is this thing called, love?
What? Is this thing called love?
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Sally HoutmanMay 31, 07:17am
Hey, let's eat, kids!
Hey, let's eat kids!
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Letitia CoyneMay 31, 07:37am
Grammar: the difference between feeling you're nuts and feeling your nuts.
Getting close to the bottom of the barrel now.
Lxx
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Sally HoutmanMay 31, 08:34am
Good one!
I'm all out.
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Ann BogleMay 31, 07:20pmEnjoyable thread.
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Darryl PriceMay 31, 07:47pmYes, quite, but like others, I like bad grammar, it adds to the fun and frustrates so many. They could use all their valuable time cleaning up the mess others leave behind. Well, I suppose, somebody's got to do it. In the end, it works or it doesn't. It's funny or it isn't. You laugh or you don't get it. Did Dr. Seuss have it right? Are we building bigger and better weapons just to make a point about which side of the bread is better to butter? Are we willing to annihilate each other over the difference?
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Sally HoutmanMay 31, 08:30pm
Awwww.....
...there, their, they're now!
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Sally HoutmanJun 01, 02:08am
Did you hear the one about the backward poet?
He wrote inverse.
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Letitia CoyneJun 01, 02:50am
*sigh*
Yes, it's true. I was going to annihilate Sally when she was a weta. Bacon wrapped. Crunchy.
But everything I say is a lie.
Back to work.
Lxx
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Sally HoutmanJun 01, 06:44am
Ohhhhh...there you go again...you with your fancy commas and your bacon and your threats of annihilation...
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Sally HoutmanJun 01, 06:49am
Did you know...
...that eating a weta wrapped in bacon would be a little bit crazy...
but...
jumping off a bridge in Paris, well....
now...
.that would be in Seine.
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Letitia CoyneJun 01, 07:17am
Perhaps all passives are closet aggressives.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3y0CD2CoCs
Who knows, or dares to dream?
Muwahahahaha! Fear me!
Or not.
Lxx -
Letitia CoyneJun 01, 07:21am
Ha! I see what you did there!
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Sally HoutmanJun 01, 07:34am
I always liked this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOSYiT2iG08
Yours is better, though. And more appropriate.
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Sally HoutmanJun 01, 07:38am
I like a thread with a body count.
No apostrophes, however, have been harmed in the body of this thread.
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Letitia CoyneJun 01, 07:41am
This signals the time I must step forward and state my name and admit to being a shameless Blackadder quoter. I know; I hang my head in shame. Yes, Monty Python, too. It is a curse.
I don't try the Johnson scene, tho. Can't stretch the Norman tongue enough for that. And never been penultimated in the solar sojourn, either.
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Sally HoutmanJun 01, 07:57am
But I bet you *have* got a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel.
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Letitia CoyneJun 01, 08:34am
A host of cunning plans and a few similes.
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Sally HoutmanJun 02, 02:56am
This, from Con Chapman's "Flavor of Law" -
“It's the Chief,” Fai'sha said, brushing her apostrophe off her forehead with the back of one hand.
.....
This...
this kind of blatant abuse of the apostrophe...
I find morally and grammatically reprehensible.
Barbarian!
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Letitia CoyneJun 02, 06:32am
Ah. I see. Yeah, no.
I studiously avoid conflict, and if it is impossible on this forum to discuss punctuation without drawing a tutt-tutt and a small pursing of the lips, it would take a braver soul than me to discuss Flav's assistant Fai'sha and her grammatically reprehensible apostrophe.
Con might be pleased to debate Fai'sha's slap-happy apostrophising. I laughed and did not take offense.
I would happily discuss the Farrah Fawcett bangs - to quote your earlier post, [if I was a person given to condoning acts of physical violence] anyone who willfully chooses to do such monstrous things to their hair should be 'struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.'
IMHO...
Lxx -
Sally HoutmanJun 02, 07:12am
Them's fightin' woids from someone who don't like no conflict.
Oh, lord, I've had a grammatical melt-down...it's all too much...or is it its all too much...
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Sally HoutmanJun 02, 07:19am
(do you have that creepy feeling that we're the only two people left on the planet?
going to check my supply of canned goods now)
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Letitia CoyneJun 02, 07:55am
I'm lucky there. I talk to myself so much that I actually get a fright when I hear a response.
It's it's not its.
It's possible civilization ended. I spend so many hours a day in my little nook with a keyboard staring at a screen... no. Facebook would definitely have told me if the world had ended.
George Takei would have had a meme about it by now. Unless, there is a conspiracy to hide the truth! No, George would have a meme about that, too.
Get cans of spam. I'm almost certain they were designed to survive a nuclear war. They'll be your best bet for long life food storage.
Lxx
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Sally HoutmanJun 02, 08:22am
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Letitia CoyneJun 02, 08:59am
Pfft Yes.
That was filmed at my house! I know Michael Stipe. He's a personal friend of mine.
Not many people know this... but I gave them the lyric - "A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies. Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline." I never asked for royalties, tho. You know. Young band, trying to get a start in the world... I do what I can.
:)
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Gloria GarfunkelJun 02, 05:09pmYou two together could go on stage as a literary comedy team, like the old George and Gracey Allen only on equal footing. You are hilarious and bring out the best in each other.
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Sally HoutmanJun 02, 08:50pm
Great idea.
I get to be Gracey, though.
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Letitia CoyneJun 02, 08:57pm
I struggle a bit with sticking to the subject at hand. My mind wanders. And I sometimes fib when I hear REM songs.
But otherwise - I think we have done the world of editing a service here today. There are many who will find their job a lot easier when confronted with comma and apostrophe uncertainty.
Lxx
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Letitia CoyneJun 02, 08:58pm
I have cigars.
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Sally HoutmanJun 02, 10:21pm
Yes, by issuing this call to arms we have done a great service to the literary community. But we cannot claim this victory as our own.
Many thanks to the brave men and women who have joined in the fight against the abuse and misuse of the humble apostrophe.
When good writing is plagued and spoiled by rogue plurals, by misrepresented possessives, we as a civilization suffer.
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Sally HoutmanJun 02, 10:53pm
"I use Dippity-Doo to keep my apostrophe under control."
- Con Chapman
Oy!
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Letitia CoyneJun 03, 01:19am
What can you do?
Its hi's choice'. If he feels he needs help and support, the door is alway's open.
Lxx
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Sally HoutmanJun 03, 01:59am
Tut tut. (Downward lip curl.)
Some people are beyond help.
Sad, that.
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Sally HoutmanJun 03, 02:08am
"Its hi's choice"
Your so r'ight.
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Letitia CoyneJun 03, 03:58am
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Sally HoutmanJun 03, 04:14am
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Letitia CoyneJun 03, 04:36am
Word. /'''\
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Letitia CoyneJun 03, 04:40am
I wish I'd written that rap. My kids don't think I'm cool. That would have shown them, for once and always.
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Joani ReeseJun 03, 11:51pmLook at this! I run away for a few days, and you two have all kinds of fun. I want to play, but it looks like it's too late. Truss's EATS, SHOOTS and LEAVES: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation is within reach whenever I'm writing or terrorizing my students with bad grades for grammar faux pas.
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Sally HoutmanJun 04, 12:31am
That'll learn you not to run away.
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Joani ReeseJun 04, 12:35am
I had to. The place was hurting mah heart.
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Sally HoutmanJun 04, 12:43am
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Joani ReeseJun 04, 01:45am
:)
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Sally HoutmanJun 05, 02:30am
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Listen very carefully.
Hear that?
That is the glorious sound of people, the world over, getting to work, taking up their pens, returning to their keyboards, digging deep, engaging in the unselfish, unspoiled act of pure creation.
It's a beautiful sound.
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Joani ReeseJun 05, 03:16am
Ker-plunk.
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Letitia CoyneJun 07, 07:15am
I would like to be getting to work, taking up my pens, returning to my keyboard, digging deep and engaging in the unselfish,unspoiled act of pure creation, but I've stalled again.
I got a little boost from the wonderful support and encouragement of readers here before things went wobbly. Then I stepped back and did some heavy duty editing for a L O N G time. Now I'm looking at blank screens and jotting single lines that go nowhere, then popping off to find pictures of funny cats - w or w/- captions.
I see the front page scroll by, but there are a lot of steadfast daily creators who rode out the storm with steadfast daily creation, and a lot of new names to get to know. [A good thing.] Many of the familiar names have fallen away, though. And there's anger, still, in a lot of forum posts.
The site doesn't feel safe yet. I hope it does soon. I hope it gets back to what it was that made me marvel at the talent and the support that was so common here.
Cheers fabulous fictionaut folks. I have a sequel to produce and I want to leap from the shoulders of greats. :) Onward!
Lxx
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Frankie SaxxJun 17, 10:09am
Always liked the unnecessary quotation marks, myself.
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Sally HoutmanJun 17, 07:42pm
Unnecessary quotation marks!?!
You mean there's another cause? Another blight on literature?
*sigh*
Will the inhumanity never cease?
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