Death to the apostrophe?

[TheCrimsomBlade]

This topic is makeing me sea sick. I'm out-a-here WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAh!!!!!!

[NiceWorg]

Originally posted by Yorick: Quote: Originally posted by NiceWorg: I´ promise to alway´s do my be´st with spelling´s and using aprosthopre's. Seriously, english is not the easiest language of them all..

If it's your second language, I don't think anyone would be criticising you. People like Vaskez and Melusine are exceptional with their bilibgual mastery.
If it's your first... what's the story?? [/QUOTE] It´s the third actually, around here you should master both finnish and swedish before moving to english because they´re official languages.

But you are right on that one. Ever since I started hanging on message boards, people have understood that not all of us type, or speak it fluently. I´ve been positively surprised.

[Bardan the Slayer]

Originally posted by andrewas: Apostrophes are 100% unneccesary. There isnt a single case I'm aware of when the lack of an apostrophe changes the apparent meaning. That being so, there are better things to do with ones time than getting obscure counter-intuitive grammatical rules correct.

The boys toys were destroyed. The girls alibi was inadequate, and the judges ruling was overruled by the ministers wisdom.

How many boys, girls, judges and ministers were involved?

The boys' toys were destroyed. The girls' alibi was inadequate, and the judges' ruling was overruled by the ministers' wisdom. = a group of boys toys were destroyed by a gang of girls. A panel of numerous judges gave a ruling, which in their wisdom, a number of ministers overruled

The boy's toys were destroyed. The girl's alibi was inadequate, and the judge's ruling was overruled by the minister's wisdom. = A single boy had his toys destroyed by a single girl. One judge passed a ruling, which one wise minister overruled because of his wisdom.

That was just off the top of my head, but it tells me that the apostrophe serves at least one vital purpose, and is not 100% unnecessary.

[lasher]

I must that the first time I went on a forum, I really had difficulties to understand (I'm a non native english speaker): all the things that are missing, that's a real pain in the the @** to understand something. But I must say that sometimes, it's just bother me to "write" it: you must press SHIFT on a german board!

But yes, they are more than useful: I'm french an if you know a little of french, you4ll understand why.

[ 04-12-2003, 04:35 PM: Message edited by: lasher ]

[LennonCook]

Originally posted by andrewas: There isnt a single case I'm aware of when the lack of an apostrophe changes the apparent meaning.

Your crackers.
You`re crackers.

The first is what your butler might say when handing you a plate of biscuits; the second insults your intelligence in a major way.

And besides, if apostrophies are unnecesary, why`d you use one in your post ?? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Sever]

Originally posted by Jorath Calar: Do it sometimes... then again English is my second languages so up you'rs...

[img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] Literary genius!!

Personally, it doesn't really worry me. It usually comes automatically for me but i can understand why others find it unnecessary or annoying. If i come across a post that looks like it was written by a stoned ten year old, then that's how seriously i consider whatever point they're trying to put across. Not much usually.

[Epona]

I agree Yorick - apostropes are important, and lack of them can change the meaning of a sentence as has been ably demonstrated by many contributions to this thread.

It's one thing if English is not your first language - and I admire anyone with multilingual skills good enough to post in a second or third language on a forum! It can be difficult to get to grips with where apostrophes are appropriate.

Same goes for very young people who are still learning, it's a process of trial and error after all, or people with dyslexia, which must make typing on a forum a bit of a nightmare.

But those who speak English as a first language and don't use apostrophes out of laziness, or thinking they're not important - well IMO it's a bit selfish, since it makes the reader have to do the work trying to figure out what the hell you're on about!

[ 04-13-2003, 08:44 AM: Message edited by: Epona ]

[Kaltia]

About dyslexia: My brother and dad are both severe dyslexics, both having the handwriting of a five year-old child. Karl, my brother, plays games and panicks whenever he wants to type in a cheat code, and mostly avoids the internet. My dad plays FPS games online and so has to communicate, but when he does, it is with appalling spelling. Don't mock him, though, he has a degree in mechanical engineering

[ 04-13-2003, 09:04 AM: Message edited by: Kaltia ]

[Bardan the Slayer]

Originally posted by Kaltia: About dyslexia: My brother and dad are both severe dyslexics, both having the handwriting of a five year-old child. Karl, my brother, plays games and panicks whenever he wants to type in a cheat code, and mostly avoids the internet. My dad plays FPS games online and so has to communicate, but when he does, it is with appalling spelling. Don't mock him, though, he has a degree in mechanical engineering

Yep, sadly it's only recently that the school system is recognising that dyslexia and stupidity are not at all related, and a person can be severely dyslexic, but highly intelligent.

Decades ago, that thought was very new and not very widespread, and many thoroughly intelligent and deserving people were tossed on the scrapheap by the school authorities, labelled as "lazy" or "dim".

[Timber Loftis]

English major. Whan more need I say? I simply take it as an indication of how well one knows the language. Usually, poor punctuation makes me immediately think the person is young or an English-as-second-language board member. This is often wrong, but I'm just relating what my immediate thought is. When they're just typos, however, I don't fret too much.

If you know the right punctuation, then a typo is no big deal. However, if you don't know the difference in meaning between many of our common homonymns, they are certainly worth checking out. These are different words, with different meanings. Some common ones that irk me are there/their/they're its/it's and to/too.

For some reason, my most common IWF typo is "a" instead of "and." Weird. [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img]