The Apostrophe Rule Abuse Game

by JT » Thu May 22, 2008 3:28 pm

Do you mean apostrophe rules or the 'misuse' of ironic quotations? I have been 'accused' of the latter, which I use a lot. Because I'm sort of an ironic, 'sarcastic' kind of guy I guess.
So which is it, 'Blue' sky?

by **Mr Blue Sky** » Thu May 22, 2008 11:25 pm

JT wrote:Do you mean apostrophe rules or the 'misuse' of ironic quotations? I have been 'accused' of the latter, which I use a lot. Because I'm sort of an ironic, 'sarcastic' kind of guy I guess.
So which is it, 'Blue' sky?

I use those a lot too. No one's picked me up on it though for 'ages'.

The kind of thing I'm highlighting is one of your old favourites actually JT - referring to a decade as the 1980's, rather than the 1980s... :wink:

by **Moon-Crane** » Fri May 23, 2008 12:30 pm

I'd better get my 4Gb card ready for a trip around the local market

by **Dorset Girl** » Sat May 24, 2008 4:32 pm

Still haven't got the one from the other day off of my phone, but here's one I saw yesterday. The people who own the store are called Cleall, so I'm pretty sure that there should be an apostrophe before that 's'....

*prepares to :oops:

if it's wrong!*

by **CatNamedRudy** » Sat May 24, 2008 7:16 pm

Yes. There should be.

by **insaneasperger** » Mon May 26, 2008 12:32 pm

the square Corfe Castle??? Is Corfe Castle square??? Or am I just being stupid, due to this cold! :oops:

by **Dorset Girl** » Mon May 26, 2008 12:42 pm

insaneasperger wrote:the square Corfe Castle??? Is Corfe Castle square??? Or am I just being stupid, due to this cold!

No, it should be Cleall's. :lol:

by **Wezzo** » Mon May 26, 2008 4:56 pm

insaneasperger wrote:the square Corfe Castle??? Is Corfe Castle square??? Or am I just being stupid, due to this cold!

It's a list of things:

-The Square
-Corfe Castle
-Local Village Shop
etc

by **Dorset Girl** » Mon May 26, 2008 5:02 pm

It's the address of the shop - Clealls Stores, The Square, Corfe Castle. Corfe Castle is the name of the village.

by **Wezzo** » Mon May 26, 2008 5:40 pm

Dorset Girl wrote:It's the address of the shop - Clealls Stores, The Square, Corfe Castle. Corfe Castle is the name of the village.

Ah got it.

by **Mr Blue Sky** » Mon May 26, 2008 9:12 pm

Dorset Girl wrote:Still haven't got the one from the other day off of my phone, but here's one I saw yesterday. The people who own the store are called Cleall, so I'm pretty sure that there should be an apostrophe before that 's'....

*prepares to if it's wrong!*

Excellent! That's 'officially' 1-1 then DG, although I'm just nabbing obvious ones from any website I look at.

For instance, I could go on to virtually any footbal website and be able to pick out the Champions' League error. Likewise St James Park - surely that should be St James's Park - the park of St James?

Care to explain that one, M-C? :wink:

by **Dorset Girl** » Mon May 26, 2008 9:42 pm

There's an area of Swansea called St Helens. There was a huge debate in the local paper about whether or not it should actually be St Helen's. Then people started arguing about whether there should be a full stop after the 'St' bit. People got really passionate about it, writing long letters to the Editor.

After people started to lose interest, the same person who started the St Helens argument wrote to the paper about whether the Welsh form of the village that I lived in should be spelt Dyfnant or Dynfant - apparently there were road signs using both spellings. All in all, this grammar debate went on for months and months with no resolution. :lol:

by **Moon-Crane** » Tue May 27, 2008 11:07 am

Mr Blue Sky wrote:For instance, I could go on to virtually any footbal website and be able to pick out the Champions' League error. Likewise St James Park - surely that should be St James's Park - the park of St James?

Care to explain that one, M-C?

No, i've never understood it either. It has been correctly called St James's Park before, but got dropped again for some reason. It's the same with St James' Cemetary in Liverpool

I used to ask my mate in St Albans why they didn't use an apostrophe seeing as it was St Alban. Still haven't found out.

There's no real logic to the dropping of it in names as far as i can see.

by **CatNamedRudy** » Tue May 27, 2008 12:44 pm

In the case of St. James Park, the "park" is not being possessed by St. James. Ergo, the possessive apostrophe is not required. The park is the namesake not the possession. The entire proper noun is St. James Park.

If the park actually belonged to St. James then it would be St. James' park.

by **Moon-Crane** » Tue May 27, 2008 3:41 pm

CatNamedRudy wrote:In the case of St. James Park, the "park" is not being possessed by St. James. Ergo, the possessive apostrophe is not required. The park is the namesake not the possession. The entire proper noun is St. James Park.

If the park actually belonged to St. James then it would be St. James' park.

You're right that it could be just St James Park, without any apostrophe, if it's just named St James (as Exeter City's ground is). I could live with that seeing as a St James was unlikely ever to have owned that piece of land :lol:

But, it's called St James's Park (the possessive 's' pronounced). If there was more than one St James it could get away with St James', as that is a plural possessive. As far as i know there was only one St James, so it has to be St James's (which is how the park in London is named).

The wiki page explains it pretty well:
1. My sister's friend's investments (the investments belonging to a friend of my sister)
2. My sister's friends' investments (the investments belonging to several friends of my sister)
3. My sisters' friend's investments (the investments belonging to a friend of several of my sisters)
4. My sisters' friends' investments (the investments belonging to several friends of several of my sisters)

by **CatNamedRudy** » Tue May 27, 2008 7:24 pm

I was taught to never put an apostrophe followed by an S if the noun ends with an S! (St. James for example).

by **Dorset Girl** » Tue May 27, 2008 7:59 pm

According to this page:

2. They are used to denote possession, for example:
the dog's bone
the company's logo
Jones's bakery (but Joneses' bakery if owned by more than one Jones)

So does that mean it should be James's? :scratch:

by **CatNamedRudy** » Tue May 27, 2008 8:12 pm

Dorset Girl wrote:According to this page:

2. They are used to denote possession, for example:
the dog's bone
the company's logo
Jones's bakery (but Joneses' bakery if owned by more than one Jones)

So does that mean it should be James's?

Well that's what MC says but I don't see it that way since the park is not being OWNED by St. James.

In the case of Jones's Bakery, it should be Jones' Bakery if owned by more than one Jones (according to what Wiki says) but the plural of Jones does appear to be Joneses as in Keeping up with the Joneses!

However, according to what I was taught back in the dark ages of American school, it would be The Jones' Bakery no matter if it was owned by one Jones family or more. Never an apostroph "S" if the noun ends in "S".

by **Moon-Crane** » Tue May 27, 2008 8:47 pm

CatNamedRudy wrote:I was taught to never put an apostrophe followed by an S if the noun ends with an S! (St. James for example).

I'd have been slapped silly if i'd done that (well, not really, but i'd get marked down)

I was always taught that s' was for plurals only.

With St James's - the way i see it is that the park is honoured in his name - or known as the park of St James - so possessive. It can simply be the park called St James too, so no apostrophe comes into play. It can never be St James' for me unless there are at least two people called St James for it to 'belong' to.

This is fun! :lol:

by **CatNamedRudy** » Tue May 27, 2008 8:55 pm

English is a stupid ass language! It's (its, its') :wink:

a wonder any of us ever learns how to read, write, spell or puncuate!

by **Dorset Girl** » Tue May 27, 2008 10:59 pm

And we all laughed when Niles corrected the graffiti in Nervosa. Oops, and I started that last sentence with an 'and'.

by **CatNamedRudy** » Tue May 27, 2008 11:10 pm

Dorset Girl wrote::lol: And we all laughed when Niles corrected the graffiti in Nervosa. Oops, and I started that last sentence with an 'and'.

Did you know a preposition is a bad thing to end a sentence with? :lol:

by **Mr Blue Sky** » Wed May 28, 2008 2:52 am

CatNamedRudy wrote:I was taught to never put an apostrophe followed by an S if the noun ends with an S! (St. James for example).

Well, I thought it was St. James's, clearly, but guess what? We all get to be right!

After doing a bit of research here's what I found on 'The Apostrophe Society' board...

The possessive of Tess is Tess's: This is Tess's homework.
Some people would write: This is Tess' homework.
There's no consensus as to which is right; both are found in reputable writing. Most style guides prefer Tess's, but you'll as often see that was Wales' first goal as that was Wales's first goal.

The possessive of James is James's or James' (see Tess, above) but never Jame's.

So there you go! We know from the above that the current St. James Park is incorrect, it's just a question of whether St. James' or St. James's should be used instead. Either's correct.

St. James is definitely the literal possessive in the St. James's Park example too, regardless of whether St. James actually owned the land or not! :lol:

It reminds me of an argument I used to have about Stadia and Stadiums. I was convinced the latter was incorrect as I'd taken Latin at school and knew the plural for anything ending -ium was -ia. So I looked in the Oxford English dictionary to resolve the dispute and it turned out both are perfectly acceptable in modern usage.

by **CatNamedRudy** » Wed May 28, 2008 3:02 am

I refuse to acquiesce to the St. James Park issue!

If you did that, such things as the names of stadiums would have to be apostrophe'd! ie Lambeau Field would have to called Lambeau's Field. Or Yankee Stadium would have to be called Yankee's Stadium.

St. James Park is the entire proper name of the park. It is not possessive in any way.

So there!

by **Mr Blue Sky** » Wed May 28, 2008 3:03 am

Moon-Crane wrote:If there was more than one St James it could get away with St James', as that is a plural possessive.

Hey, wouldn't the plural possessive for St. James's be St. Jameses'? :lol:

You're right Cat, this language is bollocks!

I've got a theory as to why signwriters get the rule wrong so often. I think it's because plural possessives like the example above look so ugly that they don't want to make the sign look shit, so they abuse the rule knowing no fucker knows it anyway! :lol:

What do you think, am I on to something here? :wink:

The Apostrophe Rule Abuse Game

Who is online