A Good Laugh or a Crying Shame?

[PatrickOD]

but who the dickens says "we where going"?

Depends were you come from! Where I come from there is often no difference between the pronunciation of 'where' and 'were'.
And what about - 'If I wear a blackbird I'd whistle and sing'? There's no end to it - it would where you out, not to put too fine a point on it!

[barber olly]

'If I wear a blackbird I'd whistle and sing'?

Well it's a change from a parrot - but would you suck seed or leave that to the blackbird?

[Don Petter]

I've got a budgie going cheep.

[Norfolk Born]

Can I buy it through a higher perches agreement?

[EnemyoftheStoat]

Pompey's ground : Nottarf Krap. Says it all

[Chris Newman]

George Bernard Shaw suggested that the apostrophe be scrapped as the sense is usually apparent from the context. I say that as another ex-English teacher who found it very hard to make the apostrophe rules sink into the brains of his pupils.

[subcontrabass]

I saw today this slogan painted on the back of a van:

We Dont Promise
What We Cant Deliver

[PatrickOD]

Yes, Chris and subcontrabass, the absence of the apostrophe causes less anxiety than its misuse, but........where's the craic in that? Of course, French has no apostrophe, nor Irish, and if they had we would lose such classics as 'La plume de ma tante' and 'Bainne na mbo dos na gamhna,( the milk of the cow for the calf) the juice of the barley for me'. But then in the latter you're into genitives, and eclipsion which is why 'bo' has an 'm' in front of it which changes the sound. And anyway, 'ma tante's plume' and 'an bo's bainne' wouldn't work rhythmically, so.... blah blah.

[teamsaint]

Minimally, if at all. We mustn't confuse the poor dears.

To introduce a serious note things like apostrophes are taught long and hard nowadays, frankly to the detriment of some rather more useful skills and knowledge.
They are certainly taught far more thoroughly than 30 years ago.

[Pabmusic]

I think poor pronunciation has a lot to do with poor spelling.

Most certainly, and its spelling mistakes in informal writings from centuries ago that can give us clues as to how things were pronounced then.

[Pabmusic]

To introduce a serious note things like apostrophes are taught long and hard nowadays, frankly to the detriment of some rather more useful skills and knowledge.
They are certainly taught far more thoroughly than 30 years ago.

It's a bit odd. Of all the grammar/syntax rules, the use of apostrophes is one of the least important. They're effectively accents we use to denote missing letters, and sense is usually (but not quite always) as clear without them. French uses the circumflex in a similar way, to denote a missing 's' (and that is now dropped from some words). But is there a useful advantage is in being reminded that "the dog's bone" is shorthand for "the doges bone" (or more probably "the dogges bone")? The practice started in France about 1530 (think of l'heure) and spread to Britain - so it's actually a relatively modern fashion. I suppose it does emphasise just how much we elide sounds (British English is notorious for elision), but how useful is that?

[gurnemanz]

It's a bit odd. Of all the grammar/syntax rules, the use of apostrophes is one of the least important. They're effectively accents we use to denote missing letters, and sense is usually (but not quite always) as clear without them. French uses the circumflex in a similar way, to denote a missing 's' (and that is now dropped from some words). But is there a useful advantage is in being reminded that "the dog's bone" is shorthand for "the doges bone" (or more probably "the dogges bone")? The practice started in France about 1530 (think of l'heure) and spread to Britain - so it's actually a relatively modern fashion. I suppose it does emphasise just how much we elide sounds (British English is notorious for elision), but how useful is that?

"The dog's bone" is clearly an example of different use of the apostrophe from the "The dog's stupid". "The dog's bone" does not essentially denote a missing letter but is the Germanic genitive case ending "s" which shows possession, as in modern German "Der Knochen des Hundes". With "The dog's bone" the apostrophe actually does denote a missing letter.

[Pabmusic]

"The dog's bone" is clearly an example of different use of the apostrophe from the "The dog's stupid". "The dog's bone" does not essentially denote a missing letter but is the Germanic genitive case ending "s" which shows possession, as in modern German "Der Knochen des Hundes". With "The dog's bone" the apostrophe actually does denote a missing letter.

No, I'm afraid that's not right. The Old English genitive case ended in '-es' (there are many written examples persisting into the 17th century). Our possessive 's is actually '-es', with the apostrophe in place of the missing 'e'. That's how (and why) we adopted it in the 16th century, but of course we do not think of it like that now because we have forgotten we ever had a genitive case - which is one of the reasons for the general confusion that surrounds its use.

I think you are (understandably) comparing it with modern German. But modern German derives mainly (I think) from Upper German dialect, and of course it's modern. English has its roots in the Western German dialect (as do Dutch and Frisian), and a thousand years ago the singular genitive case for strong nouns ended in -es. This persisted into Middle English as the usual possessive ("And in a glass he had pigges bones..." - prologue to The Canterbury Tales) and it was pronounced (so "pigg-es" as two syllables). This had changed a bit by the mid-1500s and we had elided the sounds into something more like a single syllable much of the time; we then embraced the French apostrophe to show where a syllable used to be. Shakespeare uses both forms, though the apostrophe is more common; but he would have known that -'s is a shorthand for -es. What has happened since then is that we have forgotten this - perfectly understandably since we don't think of pronouncing "dog's" as two syllables. Therefore, the apostrophe has become a rule without an apparent purpose - we use it because that's what we do. This is what can lead to confusion. Its perfectly OK to talk about the 'possessive' apostrophe and the one that indicates a missing letter, but they're really the same.

The one use of the apostrophe that is different is the (later) use to separate things like letters (there are too many s's in Mississippi), which is hardly objectionable but doesn't exactly help make things clearer.

[teamsaint]

Mrs Teamsaint is an expert on this.

She tells me that the only occasion on which meaning is altered significantly by the presence/omission of apostrophes is when number (singular or plural) is uncertain. This is usually, though not always, made clear by context, and most people can infer the meaning.
In other words, it's of limited value.

Its also true to say that teachers have to teach this thoroughly, and that they have many creative and imaginative ways of teaching this .

Also , their time could be better spent !!

[PatrickOD]

'We use it because that's what we do.' Pabmusic.

May I borrow that, Pabmusic, if I ever again have the temerity to provoke a discussion on the apostrophe? Your explanation convinces me. Thank you.
However, to retain some credibility, may I observe that some can, and some can't, and I think I will always continue to apostrophise - I couldn't bear not to.