Genealogy Chat

Way ahead of you, Clive - I pointed out that awful grocer's apostrophe on another thread about the beta tree a couple of days ago.

Jean I think the usual form is gentleman's tailor - it is an appeal to flatter the prospective customer - come into my shop and I'll make a gentleman of you. The plural possessive would still be gentlemen's, the tailor of the gentlemen.

Thanks Clive..........I know my basic punctuation but I was always stumped with that one. (and me with a high school education ....lol)

After googling various online dictionaries, I have found that photo has become a word in its own right, and the plural is photos, so the apostrophe is indeed unnecessary. I added the following to the General Board yesterday because it made me smile. It is from Friday's Times: 'Stern resistance to the use of the apostrophe is on view at a high-rise block in Birmingham, where a notice reads: 'Residents refuse to be placed in chutes.' Liz :-)

OK my 4 pennyworth. An apostrophe can be used in 2 places. a) to denote possession, ie Charley's Aunt, Fred's car, Mary's children, the Blairs' holiday. b) in place of missing bits, ie isn't, where ' replaces o (abbreviation of is not). An abbreviation which is just a shorter version, like photo for photograph or photos for photographs etc does not need an abbreviation, though I have seen 'phone for telephone. nell

Can't answer the question, because I can't see what you can't - if you see what I mean. But to come back to photos briefly, photo isn't an abbreviation, it's a contraction. I saw another lovely example of misused apostrophes in Currys only yesterday: 'PC's and Laptops'. Now PC is the abbreviation of personal computer, and could quite correctly be P.C., but that usage is rather old fashioned and rarely seen any more. I suppose I should just be grateful it didn't say PC's and Laptop's.

Ann Yes, I agree it should be Curry's, but I doubt they'll change now!

I agree with Clive, there is no need for the word photos to have an apostrophe in it. The word PHOTO is now in such common usage that there is no longer a need to indicate that some letters are missing - it is a word in its own right, so to speak. Another word which has contracted by common usage into a word in its own right is FRIDGE. When fridges first hit the market they were called Refriger ators, (no d in that, notice) contracted to 'fridge. (You do not put an apostrophe at the beginning AND at the end of a word as this alters its meaning - the first apostrophe alerts you to the fact that there are one or more letters missing from the word. I was taught the old-fashioned way. Speech marks are always double inverted commas, apostrophes are always single inverted commas. I have to confess that I am now so used to seeing the misuse of the apostrophe that I sometimes struggle with its, it's and its' - I am pretty sure that you never use its' ...but not 100%. OC

It's is the exception to the rule: it is only used to shorten 'it is' and never to show possession. Janice

And GR does us no favours by editing out apostrophes in its message boards. I have got quite used to putting in a double quote where I want an apostrophe to appear. Though sometimes it is easier to spell things out in full, even though it looks pedantic. J

Photo is actually a truncation, and as such, should (strictly speaking) have the full stop after it, as mentioned somewhere above. Mr is an abbreviation and should not have a full stop (although I have often seen one). Mark

Mark Strictly speaking, a word such as Mr, which is an abbreviation, should be (and used to be, for those of us who are old enough to remember) written M with the r elevated and underlined. But that goes back to the days of old, when an address was indented on an envelope in a sloping fashion. All gone since we went over to American, abandoning our peculiar and unique language in case other English-speaking races found it too difficult. OC

OC How many Penny Blacks are needed for a Large Letter? I remember the sad day when PO Telecomms (as it was then) abolished paragraph indentation in letters and other typed documents. We still got specifications typed on Gestetner skins and corrected in that pink nail-varnishy stuff. J

The simple rule is that plurals do not have apostrophes. An apostrophe is used either to denote a missing letter (or letters) or the possessive case of a noun.

Um, Reggie... The cat's basket = one cat with a basket. The cats' basket = lots of cats sharing a basket Surely??? OC

So the apostrophe is showing possession - there's no contradiction surely.

John, GR doesn't edit out apostrophes. Are you sure you haven't been using the accent key by mistake, as a lot of people seem to do?

Reggie is right, OC. The apostrophe is not used to form a plural, but can be added to denote possession. In the example you give, the apostrophe is related to possession in both cases: The cat's basket (the basket of the singular cat). The cats' basket (the larger basket of the plural cats).

Mary: I use the symbol under the at sign - thus '. It seems to disappear. Sod's Law says it won't this time <g>. J

There you are, it worked fine :-) Don't know the position on a UK keyboard because I use an Italian one, but it certainly looks like an apostrophe.