Comment on Germans decry influence of English as ‘idiot’s apostrophe’ gets official approval
BumpingFuglies@lemmy.zip 11 months ago
Interesting. In English, I’d say the “idiot’s apostrophe” an apostrophe that’s used for a non-possessive, non-contraction ‘s’.
E.g., “The Johnson’s are going to the mall to buy pizza’s.”
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Doesn’t “idiot’s” in this example show possession?
And the “Johnson’s” is a plural?
BumpingFuglies@lemmy.zip 11 months ago
In English, apostrophes are only used for possession and to indicate missing letters (usually vowels), as in contractions.
My example showed apostrophes incorrectly being used for non-possessive plural nouns. I used a proper noun (“Johnson”) and a common one (“pizza”) to better illustrate my point.
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Thanks.
Wanted to make sure I was getting what you were puttin’ down.
Yea, the rules are pretty clear, at least I always thought so.
Kind of telling that so many people can’t be bothered to understand it.
vatlark@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It’s not always that simple…
BumpingFuglies@lemmy.zip 11 months ago
Nah, it’s pretty simple. Pronouns don’t use apostrophes for possession; they only use them for contractions like “it’s”.