Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Wednesday, December 18. 2024

Grammar


Ever get a Christmas card with the label, like, the Smith's?


Is it bad grammar education, or is it short for "the Smith's household"?




Posted by Bird Dog at 13:55 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

Ever get a Christmas card with the label, like, the Smith's?
Is it bad grammar education, or is it short for "the Smith's household"?

Most likely it is bad grammar education.

The misuse of "it's," an abbreviation for "it is," aggravates me.
#1 Gringo on 2024-12-18 15:10 (Reply)
Did you know that when its first appeared in the late 16th century it was written it's? Well, it was - because it's represented pronoun it + possessive inflection -'s.

Even though the apostrophe would gradually fall out of use (probably by analogy with his/hers), it's remained in common use into the 19th century.
#1.1 JJM on 2024-12-18 15:27 (Reply)
They just want me to know that it's not from Morrisey and Johnny Marr's band
#2 Smiff on 2024-12-18 15:16 (Reply)
It's the legacy of our eccentric rules for the use of the apostrophe, which are just confusing enough to create doubt in those who are not all that sure of their written grammar and punctuation.

It should simply be The Smiths but the absence of that apostrophe creates an element of doubt among those who vaguely recall "something some English teacher went on about long, long ago".

So better to be safe and stick on an apostrophe just in case!
#3 JJM on 2024-12-18 15:17 (Reply)
We should just ditch the apostrophe.

Within a generation, it would be forgotten.
#4 JJM on 2024-12-18 15:30 (Reply)
It should say "Some Smiths", it's so pretentious to imply that they are THE Smiths, like there aren't any other Smiths'
#5 Schmidtt on 2024-12-18 15:50 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.
BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.