New member's

[John Caswell]

Thankyou.
How I hate people like me

John

[Baggy Trousers]

Originally Posted by pre65

Every forum should have at least one pedant.

I bags being another.

However, I am relieved to have my curiosity assuaged - I have been much exercised over whatever it was that a new member possessed. I did entertain a hope that it might include a lawnmower but I suspect I shall have to continue in my disappointment that you chaps continue to bang on about HiFi or something similarly arcane. Really should broaden the old horizons, what?

Baggo.

PS The 6550 continues to provide wonderful reliability and music.

[Matthew Snell]

Can I make a suggestion? A new section on the forum devoted entirely to the apostophe! I understand there are moves afoot to get rid of it altogether. Me, I rather like the things and would rather get rid of all the grocer's.

Matthew

P.S. My 6550 continues to please too - nice to hear of another fan.

[andrew ivimey]

- get rid of all the grocer's what!? ek ek ek ek ek ek ek ek ek ek

Do you mean you want to get rid of all the grocers (who often use the apostrophe badly or you want to get rid of all the gorcer's misuse of the apostrophe?

confused of Bedford

[Richard]

Originally Posted by andrew ivimey

- get rid of all the grocer's what!? ek ek ek ek ek ek ek ek ek ek

Do you mean you want to get rid of all the grocers (who often use the apostrophe badly or you want to get rid of all the gorcer's misuse of the apostrophe?

confused of Bedford

yep get rid of all the gorcer's too and the pendant's

[andrew ivimey]

gorcers and pendants - whatever next !!

How wrong would it be if the English reading public just forgot the apostrophe? Would there be any more or any less confusion :-)

There are clearly typos, poor spelling and poor grammar - which is worst? It only matters if it makes the intended meaning less clear?

After that I suppose it is just a larfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff.

[Richard]

Yes English is a confusing language. I find myself saying lang-u-age as I type. It would be easier to type langwige, err, but should that be langwich or langwidge or lankwitch or... Multiply that problem by thousands and it starts to make sense to have defined spellinks to at least try and adhear to

[colin.hepburn]

Originally Posted by Richard

Yes English is a confusing language. I find myself saying lang-u-age as I type. It would be easier to type langwige, err, but should that be langwich or langwidge or lankwitch or... Multiply that problem by thousands and it starts to make sense to have defined spellings to at least try and adhear to

Ahh not if you are Dyslexic like me any spellings are a nightmare even with a spell-checker as it give you both UK and US versions of the words or something totally different

[andrew ivimey]

So, perhaps spelling doesn't matter half as much as poor grammar.

With spelling the meaning is still (usually) there even if the words are mispelled. Richard, for example, gives us some examples and I suggest it is actually quite difficult to mispell in a way that preserves as easily accessible meaning as when the text is spelled correctly but this may not always be true. 'Textese' (used with mobile phones) is catching on, much to my regret, and I wonder how many assignations never happen because Romeo was 'l8 4 a d8' with his Juliet.

A writer may have difficulty in converying meaning i.e. what the writer intends to say, depending on ability to express meaning clearly and concisely. Potentially there is fear and dreadful ambiguity of the reader's interpretation or the writer's (use of the apostrophe here shows that the reader knows there is only one writer and one reader; the text belongs to the writer and the interpretation belongs to the reader. No apostrophes would confuse as this could then mean many writers of one text uh! nonsense and many readers of this text - possible. We need a context too, then.) text too makes me wonder how we ever make much sense to each other! - maybe we don't ;-)

But to use grammar incorrectly, as an example, the apostrophe, can make for some serious misunderstandings - easy to make but also easy not to do so, I would assert.

' CD's ' is as bad as ' carrot's'. Though in the former the apostrophe is simply unecessary and in the latter it makes me wonder what a carrot can own - bizarre!

'The people's princess' may be an oxymoron but is grammatically correct. Mind you, 'colourless green thoughts sleep furiously' is grammatically correct too, and arguably makes even less sense.

I could go on but I don't think anyone is still awake and those that are probably would rather I talked about the valve's possibilities - You see, it doesn't work. ;-) ;-)

[Richard]

text too makes me wonder how we ever make much sense to each other! - maybe we don't ;-)

Language is clumsy and all the bolt ons and tools have been introduced to fine tune it and convey the message (whatever it is) more clearly.

' CD's ' is as bad as ' carrot's'. Though in the former the apostrophe is simply unecessary and in the latter it makes me wonder what a carrot can own - bizarre!

Ah, don't forget the apostrophe is also used in place of missing letters to enable us to more nearly write as we speak. Thus CD's might be correct if it is meant Compact Disks, or should it then be C'D's? There's one for the ultimate pendant competition I fink