https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-li...e-50602665
A retired journalist who founded a campaign to preserve the correct use of the apostrophe is bowing out because "ignorance has won".
The Apostrophe Protection Society was started by John Richards in 2001 to tackle misuse of the punctuation mark.
His work involved advising people on proper use and writing to organisations to highlight their apostrophe abuse.
The 96-year-old said: "We have done our best but the ignorance and laziness present in modern times have won."
His website contains a list of rules on where to place apostrophes, as well as a photo gallery detailing dozens of examples of misuse.
Wow, hard to believe this guy was still going at 96 years old
!
But, yeah... I've long since resigned myself to the fact that people are going to use these incorrectly. When I do see them misused, I might silently chuckle to myself, but nothing more than that
.
When I was growing up one of our neighbors who was a substitute teacher, he had one of the classes he was subbing at the time to write complaints to some store that was using the
Greengrocer's apostrophe
If anything, I admire his dedication to the cause.
(12-01-2019, 01:12 AM)Lurker101 Wrote: [ -> ]When I was growing up one of our neighbors who was a substitute teacher, he had one of the classes he was subbing at the time to write complaints to some store that was using the Greengrocer's apostrophe
Well, I think I would've enjoyed that class
!
Just as long as nobody uses an apostrophe to replace an accent over a vowel (for example,
café often seems to become
cafe'). I hate that... it's not hard to produce the accents, either on a PC or a phone
.
(12-01-2019, 01:31 AM)Kyng Wrote: [ -> ] (12-01-2019, 01:12 AM)Lurker101 Wrote: [ -> ]When I was growing up one of our neighbors who was a substitute teacher, he had one of the classes he was subbing at the time to write complaints to some store that was using the Greengrocer's apostrophe
Well, I think I would've enjoyed that class !
Just as long as nobody uses an apostrophe to replace an accent over a vowel (for example, café often seems to become cafe'). I hate that... it's not hard to produce the accents, either on a PC or a phone .
For PC Keyboards, assuming a standard US layout, they are not even supported, outside of obscure ALT codes, which may or may not work, and are not taught in typing classes. Then again 99% of the time, the accent (and/or other letter modifiers) is dropped.
(12-01-2019, 01:53 AM)Lurker101 Wrote: [ -> ] (12-01-2019, 01:31 AM)Kyng Wrote: [ -> ] (12-01-2019, 01:12 AM)Lurker101 Wrote: [ -> ]When I was growing up one of our neighbors who was a substitute teacher, he had one of the classes he was subbing at the time to write complaints to some store that was using the Greengrocer's apostrophe
Well, I think I would've enjoyed that class !
Just as long as nobody uses an apostrophe to replace an accent over a vowel (for example, café often seems to become cafe'). I hate that... it's not hard to produce the accents, either on a PC or a phone .
For PC Keyboards, assuming a standard US layout, they are not even supported, outside of obscure ALT codes, which may or may not work, and are not taught in typing classes. Then again 99% of the time, the accent (and/or other letter modifiers) is dropped.
On our UK keyboards, accented vowels are supported via AltGr... so, if anyone over here who uses apostrophes as accents, they can't fall back on the "Standard US keyboard layout" excuse
.
Still, are those codes really not taught over there
? They were certainly taught over here (albeit as part of French lessons rather than IT lessons) - and I still remember from those lessons that ALT + 130 is "é". I never use that any more, thanks to the aforementioned AltGr option, but it was still drilled into my head by a succession of French teachers
.
(12-01-2019, 02:04 AM)Kyng Wrote: [ -> ] (12-01-2019, 01:53 AM)Lurker101 Wrote: [ -> ] (12-01-2019, 01:31 AM)Kyng Wrote: [ -> ]Well, I think I would've enjoyed that class !
Just as long as nobody uses an apostrophe to replace an accent over a vowel (for example, café often seems to become cafe'). I hate that... it's not hard to produce the accents, either on a PC or a phone .
For PC Keyboards, assuming a standard US layout, they are not even supported, outside of obscure ALT codes, which may or may not work, and are not taught in typing classes. Then again 99% of the time, the accent (and/or other letter modifiers) is dropped.
On our UK keyboards, accented vowels are supported via AltGr... so, if anyone over here who uses apostrophes as accents, they can't fall back on the "Standard US keyboard layout" excuse .
Still, are those codes really not taught over there ? They were certainly taught over here (albeit as part of French lessons rather than IT lessons) - and I still remember from those lessons that ALT + 130 is "é". I never use that any more, thanks to the aforementioned AltGr option, but it was still drilled into my head by a succession of French teachers .
There is little use for ALT codes in the US, accents and the like are not common and in some cases not even supported in databases (legacy systems yay).
Also the other issue with ALT codes is that it only works on the numberpad, something that is more and more rare on keyboards these days, most people if they have a computer it would be a laptop, most laptops don't have a numberpad. Most cheap wireless keyboards that I see in stores are 80 or 60% keyboards (80% being ones with out the number pad, 60% missing anything past the enter key).
(12-01-2019, 02:24 AM)Lurker101 Wrote: [ -> ] (12-01-2019, 02:04 AM)Kyng Wrote: [ -> ] (12-01-2019, 01:53 AM)Lurker101 Wrote: [ -> ]For PC Keyboards, assuming a standard US layout, they are not even supported, outside of obscure ALT codes, which may or may not work, and are not taught in typing classes. Then again 99% of the time, the accent (and/or other letter modifiers) is dropped.
On our UK keyboards, accented vowels are supported via AltGr... so, if anyone over here who uses apostrophes as accents, they can't fall back on the "Standard US keyboard layout" excuse .
Still, are those codes really not taught over there ? They were certainly taught over here (albeit as part of French lessons rather than IT lessons) - and I still remember from those lessons that ALT + 130 is "é". I never use that any more, thanks to the aforementioned AltGr option, but it was still drilled into my head by a succession of French teachers .
There is little use for ALT codes in the US, accents and the like are not common and in some cases not even supported in databases (legacy systems yay).
Also the other issue with ALT codes is that it only works on the numberpad, something that is more and more rare on keyboards these days, most people if they have a computer it would be a laptop, most laptops don't have a numberpad. Most cheap wireless keyboards that I see in stores are 80 or 60% keyboards (80% being ones with out the number pad, 60% missing anything past the enter key).
You know, I think I'm just gonna continue this in the Keyboards thread, for the sake of staying on-topic
.
Anyway, if somebody does have no easy way to produce accents, then I'd much rather they just dropped them entirely. Sure, it doesn't look as good as having the accents - but it looks a
lot better than using apostrophes as 'accents', which sticks out like a sore thumb
.
How sad that he had to give up. Ignorance wins again.
I looked at his website and I found all the examples really quite frustrating.
I perfectly understand that the apostrophe can become a confusing thing, and I will admit that sometimes I'm not entirely sure (in which case, I will reword the sentence
). In spite of this, some uses of it are really obvious to me and it does irritate me when I see them so blatantly incorrectly used. Examples being
tomato's,
cake's, etc. One example that comes up on search is
Pie's & Burgers !? I always think, if you're not sure, I'd rather see no apostrophe than a misplaced one.