Genealogy Chat

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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 :-)

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

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.

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.

Clive can I please grab you while you are on line. Years ago, there was a shop near our school that the teacher was always annoyed with, she always said the punctuation was wrong...but I can't remember the correct way.. It was Gentlemans Tailor.........not gentlemens I think they had the apostrophe after the 's' Thanks Jean

No, of course it's not important. Never said it was. Quite the reverse. There are far more important things that this site should sort out, but I'm so glad to have had the opportunity this afternoon to provide an outlet for your heavy-handed wit. But I do know what a grocer's apostrophe is, even if you don't.

Belonging to one grocer is grocer's Belonging to two or more grocers (plural) grocers' And yes actually, we teach that to 9 year olds! The photos belong to noone, therefore no apostrophe is needed! xx

Yeah Clive - BUT photo isn't a 'real' word. - It's an Ab-breeve-iay-shun !! (lol) Dea Xxx

Dea, there isn't anything missing. The plural of photo is photos.

I'm not very technical but I think Photo's is o.k. as the apostrophe is used in a different way, not to denote posession, but to denote a 'missing bit' (I did warn you I was not very technical.) Dea Xxx P.S. Clive - pm on it's way. Xxx

Janet, if you want a pedant's answer, then photo's IS wrong as a plural of photo. Photo is a perfectly normal and accepted contraction of photograph. Its plural cannot be formed by the addition of an apostrophe, which can only denote possession. PS And I just can't resist, sorry, but if spelling is your strongpoint, apostrophes clearly aren't, because it would have to be 'spelling's my strong point', being a contraction of 'spelling is'.

I don't want to be rude either (except about the limited adult literacy skills of the designer of GR's new tree feature interface), but it takes all sorts, I suppose. Who is Ed?

I can't see the problem. Obviously Mr (or, to be politically correct, Mrs or Ms) Photo has not yet added whatever they are going to add. It says so. Whatever they add will belong to them, hence the empty space is quite correctly labelled. Tina (wondering if the slight difficulty with grammer gives some indication of the age of the people operating GR)

Let me just add, the only Grammer I learnt was in Junior School. (God,can't believe I spelt Grammar like that. Spellings my strong subject!)