ALLOW ME TO GET UP ON MY SOAP BOX
Christmas time is here, and that means ONE thing: most of you will misuse the apostrophe when addressing your envelopes and/or writing your cards, and that will totally RUIN my Christmas! So, since we OBVIOUSLY don't want that to happen, allow me to give you some simple guidelines. We'll all enjoy the season that much more with the joy of knowing we've pleased the gods of punctuation (and me).
TO SHOW PLURALITY:
1) We are The Links. No apostrophe. Just plural. Simple.
2) The Jones Family or The Jones' is how your pluralize names ending with "S."
3) The Kalez Family, or The Kalezes is correct. Their name ends in z, to make it plural it requires es, but NO apostrophe!
TO SHOW POSSESSION:
1) We are invited to the Link's house for a really fun party.
2) We are invited to the Jones' house for a really fun party. (Tricky! Same as plural!)
3) We are invited to the Kalez's for a really fun party.
And while we're at it, the ONLY time you put an apostrophe in ITS is when it is a CONTRACTION for IT IS. Otherwise it's like hers, ours, his, it is automatically possessive. Simple Simon!
*Photo from Common Sense Farm.com
13 comments:
I love it. You know I really did need the english lesson. Yup don't you know it girl! I know you know it. marge
love you
Thank you, thank you, thank you! It is so nice to know that another person is as annoyed by this as I am. Can we go over 'your' and 'you're' next? How about 'there' and 'their'? I could go on, butg you get the idea.
BTW, you've been tagged. You're it.
I am not sending cards to the Linkses, the Jonses,
or the Kalezes,
And I am certainly not going to their stupid partys.
All my love,
Suzy
Hey, where's the detachment from people's lack of proper English? LOL. Thought it was the season to be jolly no matter what!!
HOWEVER, I can say I do have one big pet peeve and that is the lack of the use of adverbs, e.g., "How are you?" "Good." Aaaaagghh. But, apparently "good" is now an adverb. Gone are the days of "well, thank you, or fine, thank you."
Oh bless you! I will print this off and refer to it.
Maybe when I answer, "I'm good" I really mean I'm skillful. maybe. and maybe its funner to annoy the grammar police than it should be.
(Count the errors for your own enjoyment)
Too funny! Of course these things bother me, too. Can we get a lesson on where to put the comma when using quotation marks because that's one that simply drives me BATTY?
God knows I need this, and all future grammer lessons. I will print and carry this with me. Thank you for the tips/refresher.
XOXO
How often have I written "The Link's"? I'm sure you have it counted!
I'm so thrilled to discover I'm not alone in my peevishness about incorrect English usage of any kind.
Knew that, so smart. No high school diploma to boot, but super-duper smart. Ha.
Hi there, found you via Suzy and what a revelation - I've found someone as anal as me! Nice to meet you. I work in recruitment and get really fed up with people who can't spell liaise, liaising or liaison. In fact, if I notice that particular faux pas, I virtually always ignore them. Not that I'm judgemental of course!
I'll be back!
Can we arrange a weekly grammar lesson from you?
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