Genealogy Chat

Clive and Reggie Yes, you are right. I misunderstood what Reggie said. When I read his post more carefully I understood! The disappearing apostrophe on genes - I have had this too, sometimes it seems to vanish into the side of the letter - but it is still there if you put your spex on! OC

Not quite an apostrophe.....but on the radio this morning......Sainsbury are to change a sign in all their shops because of complaints. At the checkouts 'Ten items or less'....to.....'Ten items or fewer' Jean

Seen recently at a well known Stationers and Printers: All StationAry items 50% off. Won't be taking them any printing work. OC

You guys might be interested in the book 'Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation ' by Lynne Truss, if you haven't read it already. 'The title of the book is an amphibology, a verbal fallacy arising from an ambiguous grammatical construction, and derived from a joke on bad punctuation: A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons. 'Why?' asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder. 'Well, I'm a panda,' he says at the door. 'Look it up.' The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. 'Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.' This joke is referred to in the book, but is not quoted therein, to the confusion of some readers who are not familiar with it. A variant of the joke, however, appears on the back cover.' Wikipedia Old fashioned as it might seem, punctuation is vitally important, because it changes the meaning of the words we write. There's a sign on my dentist's wall that drives me nuts. 'even pearlyer whites' it urges, trying to push teeth whitening procedures. It's not even hand written, but a glossy mass produced poster. Shameful!!!

Talking of being driven mad I daily face a sign which says The Company of Choices Thats Changing Lives I'm going to get out my big black magic marker soon, I swear I am. OC

I once had a screensaver that said 'My pet hate is apostrophe's in the wrong place' ! Pam

When my son was in year 6 we went to an open day at his prospective High School. I was rather dismayed to see a wall display in the English Department (of all places) entitled in enormous letters 'Example's of our Students Work'! I was then handed a leaflet inviting me to join the 'Friend's of C****** High School'. I declined the invitation... Liz :-)

GENEALOGY - FAMILY HISTORY SEARCH'S, CENSUS'S 99p As found on ebay just now. Oh dear ....

Ah, but how many parents / guardians, when writing sick notes for their children, can spell diarrhorea? I'm sure they can smell it, but that's not quite the same thing. J

John A teacher friend of mine told me about a note she had received. Little Johnny had been off school with diarrhoea. Mother had several goes at the word, finished up with Diary Ha Ha, crossed it out and wrote 'the s**ts'. OC HAPPY TO DELETE IF THIS IS FOUND OFFENSIVE - I CAN NO LONGER JUDGE.

MM Don't they know the rhyme I before E Except after C When the sound is EEEE. (Which only in fact applies to six words in the English Language) OC

Indeed, O C ... and the word ''to'' was omitted. A little word, but quite vital. Was forwarded to the technical team, months ago.

*snort* MM I missed the missing word! Some proof reader I would make eh? OC

Mmm .. thinking of proof reading … :-) Joy

Aside from the irritation of the ill-placed or misused apostrophe - think about the difference which can be made to the meaning of a sentence by the omitting of a comma. Example For sale piano by lady with curly legs Whose legs are curly? the lady or the piano? I hope it's the piano!!

I am useless with apostrophes, apart from the missing letter ones! but I have to say this thead has been wonderful to read, apart from the fact it makes me feel woefully inadequate! Suex

Does the lady with curly legs have wrinkled stockings and go by the name of Batty? Just try writing a complex and unambiguous sentence without punctuation as the legal professionals have to. J

Don't forget the commonly seen music discs for sale, called cd's of songs from the 1980's etc. There's no need for cds to have the apostrophe (records doesn't, and cds have become a word in common use, as opposed to being C.D.san abbreviation, I think)And for dates like 1970s, 1980s etc, again no need to have an apostrophe-it doesn't do anything except look bad...!

For anyone who wishes to improve their knowledge of grammar, I'd recommend 'Redicover Grammar' by David Crystal. Jan

Oooh, what a fantastic thread!! Can we have more of this please? As a child of the '60's and a student of the '70's and '80's, I was not taught any grammar at all after what to do with a full stop and comma. We were taught grammar when learning French and Latin, but the teachers didn't seem to understand that as we hadn't learned any of this in English lessons we had no idea what they were talking about! Now when I'm stuck, I refer to my trusty Readers Digest book entitled, ''How to Write and Speak Better'' which is probably very non-PC, but I think is very useful! Can someone tell me when to use a colon and when a semi-colon please? (the chapter is a bit thick for me to read! lol) Merry