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zeborahLook, I love apostrophes as much as anyone, but really I think it's time to admit that all this angst and mocking is just a waste of our time.
Does it really, in the greater scheme of things, matter all that much?
So someone says "Fix your stilleto's here" -- we know what they mean. So someone says "Its stupid" -- we know what they mean. We don't actually *need* apostrophes or lack of apostrophes in order to figure out what a sentence means.
So why force people to learn rules in order to write those sentences?
I figure we've got three choices, because this whole "Let's force pointless rules on generations of schoolkids who don't care" is getting old:
1) accept that the apostrophe can be used to signal the plural of nouns. It seems silly, but hey, why not?
2) get rid of all possessive apostrophes. All the other Germanic languages manage fine with "Deborahs book". Then we can teach simply and clearly that we use apostrophes only when letters are missing, as in "it's, that's, don't, can't".
3) get rid of all apostrophes entirely. This has the added bonus of providing a simple solution to a bunch of problems in computer coding.
---
Nice doctor diagnosed BPV and gave me medicaments for the vertigo symptoms. I thought him a little optimistic about how quickly it was going to go away since it just isn't fading in a nice linear fashion (ie, it was quite a bit worse today) but there's enough pills for a week or so.
Does it really, in the greater scheme of things, matter all that much?
So someone says "Fix your stilleto's here" -- we know what they mean. So someone says "Its stupid" -- we know what they mean. We don't actually *need* apostrophes or lack of apostrophes in order to figure out what a sentence means.
So why force people to learn rules in order to write those sentences?
I figure we've got three choices, because this whole "Let's force pointless rules on generations of schoolkids who don't care" is getting old:
1) accept that the apostrophe can be used to signal the plural of nouns. It seems silly, but hey, why not?
2) get rid of all possessive apostrophes. All the other Germanic languages manage fine with "Deborahs book". Then we can teach simply and clearly that we use apostrophes only when letters are missing, as in "it's, that's, don't, can't".
3) get rid of all apostrophes entirely. This has the added bonus of providing a simple solution to a bunch of problems in computer coding.
---
Nice doctor diagnosed BPV and gave me medicaments for the vertigo symptoms. I thought him a little optimistic about how quickly it was going to go away since it just isn't fading in a nice linear fashion (ie, it was quite a bit worse today) but there's enough pills for a week or so.
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Date: 2009-10-20 10:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-20 11:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-20 11:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-21 05:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-21 09:51 am (UTC)BRB, crying a single perfect tear.
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Date: 2009-10-20 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-21 12:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-21 05:20 am (UTC)OTOH now I have drugs. Also I saw a cool cartoon today that involved stabbing and I won't share it with you until you're nice to me, hah. :-P
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Date: 2009-10-21 09:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-21 03:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-21 05:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-21 06:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-21 02:12 pm (UTC)As far as I'm concerned, apostrophes can be done away with for possessives. It would make my job as a tutor much easier if I didn't have to keep correcting my students' mistakes. :)
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Date: 2009-10-21 06:07 am (UTC)And good to hear of the diagnosis. (And I seem to recall having said it likely wasn't BPPV. Teaches me not to play a physician.)