Klarinet Archive - Posting 000022.txt from 2000/12

From: Neil Leupold <leupold_1@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] War of the Tony`s
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 11:40:01 -0500

--- Karel Vahala <vahalakv@-----.au> wrote:

> Tim and Gavin, thank you for your support.

Support? This is not an issue where the number of people you
can sway to repeat your assertion has an impact on the correct
answer. In fact, no issue should be subject to such dyamics,
in my opinion. Such emotion over a simple linguistic techni-
cality -- remarkable -- but facts, in general, are immutable.
I misled nobody with my original statement and, for the record,
English is not a second language to me. An apostrophe is not
merely a grammatical device to denote the possessive case in
the English language, nor merely for grammatical correctness
in the cases of contractions and ommissions. You're clinging
to grade-school dogma, drilled so thoroughly into your psyche
that it is doubtless difficult to accept that English is not
nearly as concretely defined or applied as you were originally
led to believe. 'Frustrating, I know, although in this partic-
ular case, the correct usage is very concretely defined and not
subject to debate. I, too, was perplexed and puzzled through-
out elementary and middle school by this apparent abuse of Eng-
lish -- in textbooks, in written comments by English instruct-
ors, and in other printed media of innumerable sorts.

Gavin Rebetzky alluded to the correct answer when he parsed the
dynamics between proper vs. common nouns. Converting 'pony'
to 'ponies' is correct usage. Converting 'Tony' to 'Tonies'
is not, and simply tacking an 's' onto the end of a proper noun
is also incorrect relative to the plural form , i.e.; Tonys.
The only solution in the English language for this inconsis-
tency between common and proper nouns is to use the apostrophe.
Hence, Tony's -- and Neil's, believe it or not. If there were
two of me, there would not be two Neils standing before you.
The key issue here is context, not a set of dogmatic rules
that were set in concrete by Ms. Wizbicky back in the second
grade. Q.E.D. In the case of "War of the Tony's," the context
makes it plain that the writer intended to pluralize a proper
noun, and she "properly" did so. Get over it.

-- Neil

P.S. This application of the apostrophe also applies to plurals
of: numbers, letters, and abbreviations.

Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products.
http://shopping.yahoo.com/

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe from Klarinet, e-mail: klarinet-unsubscribe@-----.org
Subscribe to the Digest: klarinet-digest-subscribe@-----.org
Additional commands: klarinet-help@-----.org
Other problems: klarinet-owner@-----.org

   
     Copyright © Woodwind.Org, Inc. All Rights Reserved    Privacy Policy    Contact charette@woodwind.org