Date   : Thu, 14 Oct 2004 22:15:07 +0100
From   : "Jeremy Grayson" <jeremy.grayson@...>
Subject: Re: Signitures

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jules Richardson" <julesrichardsonuk@...>
To: <bbc-micro@...>
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 12:09 PM
Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] Signitures


> On Thu, 2004-10-14 at 04:22 +0100, Matt Davis wrote:
> > I also hate
> > it when people use apostrophes for plurals; it's simply not necessary.
One BBC,
> > two BBCs. The year 1974, the 1970s.
>
> Well of course you shouldn't for whole words anyway :) But for
> abbreviations and acronyms it's a tricky one. I'd agree for acronyms and
> your date example, but it sometimes looks odd for abbreviations if
> there's an s tacked on the end without an apostrophe (e.g. micros vs.
> micro's)
>


It only looks odd because people sociolinguistic progress (or decay,
depending on opinion) has determined that people have got out of the habit
of seeing something like "micros" written without the apostrophe. The stone
cold academic rule of thumb here is that of all the West Indo-European
varieties (German, Dutch and English), only Dutch permits the use of
apostrophes in noun plurals of any description, and even then only in
certain instances. I'll need someone like Wouter or Eelco to remind me of
the rules - I thought it was to do with plurals of nouns imported into the
Dutch language and ending in a vowel, eg de auto's, but it's nine years now
since I stopped studying Dutch, and in any case I'm thick as two short
plank's.

PLANKS! I MEANT PLANKS!!!

Jeremy