Timeline for Are apostrophes actually needed?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
8 events
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| Nov 13, 2016 at 7:02 | comment | added | herisson | How does this show apostrophes are "needed"? Would you be reluctant to say this sentence aloud because of the ambiguity? What about "The sheep's baaing warned them?" 99% of the time, the ambiguity between singular and plural won't matter or the number will be clear from context. The other 1% of the time, you can just re-word to something like "the bark of the dog(s) warned them." | |
| Jun 3, 2011 at 21:31 | comment | added | Oscar Godson |
The link i provided mentions this and he offers an alternative (which I'm not fond of myself), but offers a z as a replacement. However, another point could be, could we drop it for everything except compound verbs? Just a thought :)
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| Jun 3, 2011 at 20:25 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @Cyril: Definitely a nice 'compound verb'. Could even be indispensable if you needed to distinguish between your dogs bark warning you of a run-of-the-mill burglar, and whimper warning of an attack by 20-foot bug-eyed monsters. But as is so often the case, I think such neologisms would have to be ushered in gently, complete with hyphens for the first few decades. | |
| Jun 3, 2011 at 20:00 | comment | added | Alenanno | @Cyril ahahah yeah, it might work... | |
| Jun 3, 2011 at 19:33 | comment | added | Unknown artist | @Alenanno, why, "to bark warn" is a nice verb :) | |
| Jun 3, 2011 at 19:27 | history | edited | F'x | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 38 characters in body
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| Jun 3, 2011 at 19:23 | comment | added | Alenanno | Or worse: "The dogs bark warned them" which makes no sense at all. | |
| Jun 3, 2011 at 19:16 | history | answered | F'x | CC BY-SA 3.0 |