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Apostrophe Apostle
I am now the proud owner of a copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. The first time I read of this book's existence, I knew that I had to buy it.
I did get a slight shock on my first quick skim through the book. I'm one of those people who insist upon a comma before the "and" when listing three or more objects.
"The flag is red, white, and blue."
The author writes, "Probably the first thing you ever learn about commas, that they divide items in lists, but are not required before the and on the end."
Huh? Big sigh of relief as I continued to read. She explains that the comma before the "and" is called an Oxford Comma, is not considered standard in Britain (but is permitted), and is considered standard in the USA (where its omission is permitted). So, I have been doing it correctly--for an American.
I've only read half of the book so far, but I LOVED the chapter on apostrophes. Those poor little curves have so much work to do and are so abused. Is it really so hard to write, "Sirius is Remus's lover," instead of "Sirius is Remus' lover"? And may the militant pandas save us all from the people who write, "Sirius is Remus lover."
By the way, Sam, I loved Harry's apostrophe abuse in the latest chapter of Laocoon's Children and that Sirius comments upon the same!
I did get a slight shock on my first quick skim through the book. I'm one of those people who insist upon a comma before the "and" when listing three or more objects.
"The flag is red, white, and blue."
The author writes, "Probably the first thing you ever learn about commas, that they divide items in lists, but are not required before the and on the end."
Huh? Big sigh of relief as I continued to read. She explains that the comma before the "and" is called an Oxford Comma, is not considered standard in Britain (but is permitted), and is considered standard in the USA (where its omission is permitted). So, I have been doing it correctly--for an American.
I've only read half of the book so far, but I LOVED the chapter on apostrophes. Those poor little curves have so much work to do and are so abused. Is it really so hard to write, "Sirius is Remus's lover," instead of "Sirius is Remus' lover"? And may the militant pandas save us all from the people who write, "Sirius is Remus lover."
By the way, Sam, I loved Harry's apostrophe abuse in the latest chapter of Laocoon's Children and that Sirius comments upon the same!
Re: The basic rule is...
And when I went to school, which I expect roughly coincides with when Gehayi went to school, we were taught not to add 's to the end of words ending in s, which is why I always write "James' balls" instead of "James's balls" Speaking, of course, about Quidditch.
Punctuation rules are quite fluid, really, and what you consider correct is highly dependent on where you were educated and when and even what style guide was being used, Chicago, MLA, APA, Strunk & White all have some slight differences in how they approach things, and that doesn't even take into consideration the whole issue of UK standards.
Re: The basic rule is...
Re: The basic rule is...
However, it does make my skin crawl just a teensy bit. And the students I teach are taught the rule: "Add 's unless the word is plural and ends in -s, and then just add an apostrophe."