Thread: Abolish the apostrophe!

Originally Posted by Zeros

Yet another thread turned to bigotry!

...Seriously, what has an apostrophe got to do with the cultural diversity of Melbourne?

Not using an apostrophe doesn’t make you a bogan, it’s just incorrect use of the English written language.

What does make you a bogan however, is the expectation that everyone in Australia should be just like you and the racist notion that only white Euro / Australians are ‘real Aussies’.

Bigotry?? What a twisted world we live in.


Don't forget the 'of' instead of the 'have', James. ie. "Should have...." not "Should of..." FFS

.Seriously, what has an apostrophe got to do with the cultural diversity of Melbourne?

Hang on, hang on, it wasn't me that changed the theme of the thread or post, besides I don't, but used to, own a pair of RM boots.

Now, where is that 'up yours' smiley?

The apostrophe was pinched off the French in the 17th century, but I think its just poncing about and doesnt do anything essential. We already know where letters have been omitted from contractions, dont we, and the possessive is obvious anyway from the sentence structure, so really the apostrophe is redundant.
The Apostrophe Liberation Front (ALF) is correct, I reckon.
After all, if Americans can delete the letter 'u' from many words, then we can dump the useless apostrophe, cant we?

so, what's the difference between these two sentences then?

The girl's toys.
The girls' toys.

Can we convey the same distinction by excluding the apostrophe or does it become ambiguous?

The girls toys

Originally Posted by SBD4

so, what's the difference between these two sentences then?

The girl's toys.
The girls' toys.

Can we convey the same distinction by excluding the apostrophe or does it become ambiguous?

The girls toys

That depends on what society abolishes first.
The word girl
Or the apostrophe
And so on until we just mumble at eachother

Originally Posted by SBD4

so, what's the difference between these two sentences then?

The girl's toys.
The girls' toys.

Can we convey the same distinction by excluding the apostrophe or does it become ambiguous?

The girls toys

Like most languages, you would know from the context if it was singular or plural and possessive from the wording of the sentence. Other languages dont need apostrophes.

That filled in 5 minutes, thanks.

Like most proposals to "reform" English (spelling, grammar, pronunciation, meanings of words etc etc) this proposal ignores the simple truth that nobody (and no body) can reform English or any of its dialects (including Australian English)- it evolves continuously, but there are powerful forces controlling this evolution, and one of the strongest is the need to maintain inter-dialect intelligibility, especially in the written form.

At the present time at least, this is almost certain to keep the apostrophe.

Great to see the discussion is back on punctuation.

This is link is helpful. Apostrophe (’) | Oxford Dictionaries

Apostrophes are important in terms of clarity of position. Nothing is the apostrophes unless it’s the apostrophes’.