Timeline for Use of an apostrophe in place values of a number
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
20 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 19, 2020 at 7:14 | history | edited | Wrzlprmft | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Formatting (don’t use code formatting for anything other than code)
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| Sep 17, 2013 at 16:41 | comment | added | Howard Pautz | @AlanStorm thx for the accept - I have a feeling this one won't die :)) The "apostrophe" is like a loose nuke ... LOL | |
| Sep 17, 2013 at 16:28 | comment | added | Alana Storm | @HowardPautz I like to leave things open for a few weekdays to see if any other answers come in — accepted answers usually means people move on. (love you answer though!) | |
| Sep 17, 2013 at 16:27 | vote | accept | Alana Storm | ||
| Sep 17, 2013 at 15:56 | comment | added | Howard Pautz | @AlanStorm good - I'm cool with that too as I might be adding in more notes. (Am trying to figure out a way to post a version of your OP on Mathematics.se (or maybe meta.mathematics.se) without having it slammed back "this should be asked on ELU or ELL :)) BTW, I found 11 more text books that have this usage (but not the phrase exactly as you've posted). And @ Atsuto Nagatomo - can you link to one of the sources you say that are for or against such usage? Frankly, I've not seen any such argumentation specific to this, plural possessive nouns and genitives yes, but not these which differ. | |
| Sep 17, 2013 at 0:38 | comment | added | Howard Pautz | @AlanStorm please note the answer below - have put a lot of time tracking this down (I'm interested in this topic too) ... noticed you've got a high rep on SO, so you certainly know the value of an accepted answer --- hint hint :)) | |
| Sep 17, 2013 at 0:31 | comment | added | terdon | @FeralOink I've been a Lehrer fan since my Dad first played Poisoning Pigeons in the Park to me. There is a nice collection of his stuff on youtube (this is probably my favorite), they should be listened to, not read! | |
| Sep 14, 2013 at 4:30 | comment | added | Ellie K | @HowardPautz Me too (wish that I had Tom Lehrer for a math teacher, that is)! Thank you for finding that and sharing with us, terdon. I shuddered at using hundreds'. That looks unnatural. | |
| Sep 14, 2013 at 2:32 | answer | added | Howard Pautz | timeline score: 5 | |
| Sep 14, 2013 at 2:00 | comment | added | Howard Pautz | @terdon LOL that was a fun read. Thx. Sure wish I had had him for a math teacher! | |
| Sep 14, 2013 at 1:46 | comment | added | terdon | Well, according to this Tom Lehrer himself did not use the apostrophes and I will accept no higher authority than he! | |
| Sep 14, 2013 at 1:27 | comment | added | Howard Pautz | @terdon indeed ... trying to dig up a couple of much older text books c.a. 1940 - 1950 to see how they did it then (you, back in the day when things were more formal :) This is a weird one, isn't it? Sort of like Fish and Fishes ... but that's different of course. Can you think of others like this ? | |
| Sep 14, 2013 at 1:24 | comment | added | terdon | @HowardPautz yeah, I was trying to decide if this is a plural possessive or a simple plural and couldn't. I think it could be read both ways. If you found six cases in math books, I'd say that constitutes an answer, it's got references and everything! :) | |
| Sep 14, 2013 at 0:23 | comment | added | Howard Pautz | At some point don't things like this just morph into the simple form by way of long usage ? E.g., Middle English to morow morphed from the Old English to morgenne (which I'm guessing is some derivation of German Morgan) and similar today from to-day etc. So things like apostrophes which might just seem irksome get dropped off after a while ? Just curious, I looked through a bunch of math books (I have a ton) all six I found that contain number systems place holders use "ones" "tens" "hundreds" sans the apostrophe. | |
| Sep 14, 2013 at 0:15 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackEnglish/status/378673367030968320 | ||
| Sep 13, 2013 at 23:09 | comment | added | terdon | An argument could be made for both hundreds and hundreds' but not for the hundred's. The latter indicates there is a specific 'hundred' and this is its place. | |
| Sep 13, 2013 at 22:38 | history | edited | Alana Storm | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 127 characters in body
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| Sep 13, 2013 at 22:29 | review | First posts | |||
| Sep 13, 2013 at 23:20 | |||||
| Sep 13, 2013 at 22:17 | comment | added | user51029 | Opinions among writers and grammarians differ on whether to use an apostrophe, however many sources are against both systematic use and systematic avoidance of it, especially in your latter case. | |
| Sep 13, 2013 at 22:10 | history | asked | Alana Storm | CC BY-SA 3.0 |