Excellent point. It's not that people have forgotten how to use the
apostrophe. It's that they've never learned. 

 

The problem is that the apostrophe has no sound equivalent. Period
represents a full stop and falling intonation, comma marks a pause,
question mark has rising intonation, and so on. With apostrophe, bupkis.
Dogs, dog's, and dogs' sound exactly alike. No wonder people can't get
it right.

 

Dick Veit

 

________________________

 

Richard Veit

Department of English, UNCW 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stahlke, Herbert F.W.
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2006 9:40 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Possessive form

 

Paul and Nancy,

 

You have reinforced the impression that there is a lot of confusion,
even in the style guides people use, on some uses of the apostrophe.  I
don't believe this is a new thing.  There has always been a fairly high
degree of variability in the use of apostrophes, from the universally
condemned "green-grocer's apostrophe" ("fresh apple's today), to the
pretty widely recognized apostrophe in contractions.  It isn't that
there was at some point in history a well defined set of rules, and
since then the apostrophe, like the rest of the English language,
standards have collapsed.  Rather, there's been a effort since the
mid-19th to codify the use of this odd orthographic tic, and most people
haven't bothered to master the rules, can't find a standard set, or
don't really care.  It's the ongoing near-chaos that is the English
language.

 

Herb


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