NY Has Officially Lost It's Mind Bitch

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by DanaC

There is often confusion in plural possessive, when the plural is not formed by the addition of 's', such as: men's or mens' ?

There is, but the knowledgeable -- the adequately trained, if you like -- do not suffer from it. Men's is the correct usage: the plural is indicated in the vowel mutation and the apostrophe goes before the S because there is no need to stack plural formation on plural formation; cf. English's avoidance of the double negative. The apostrophe may be taken to stand for the missing possessive pronouns like his, hers, theirs -- "the men-theirs."

I had this cold by elementary school. What's the others' story?

What I was trying to explain Urbane, is that there is a difference between competently using language in its spoken form and having the same degree of competence in written language.

Which point didn't actually get made then, but it is true.

One is a natural skill, which the brain is set-up to acquire in the same way we are set up to learn to walk, and the other...isn't. Some people will have more aptitude for the nuances of written language than others. It is a skill which some have learned well, others poorly, some exceptionally... the idea that they are somehow less than you, or less respectful of their spoken tongue than you, because they did not acquire the same nuanced understanding as you did of apostrophe use and the derivation of words, is arrogant.

There was no understanding, nuanced or otherwise, to that example at all, which is why I remember it so vividly and why I'm so thoroughly appalled even today -- the error was too elementary for an adult's powers. I did not achieve my quality of written English through either exceptional genius nor magic. If anything, it was being trained by people who got it -- and could teach others to get it also.

The language came first... we then invented ways of expressing it that tried to fit it into an entirely different grammatical structure(Latin). Written language is an invention...its structures are the arbitrary decisions of long dead men, in much the same way that the Bible is. Fortunately, these days, grammar is now taught in a very different way to linguistics and communication students.

K. I'll get off my horse now about the Latin thing. Its a bugbear of mine.

I agree: it was quite the misapplication, wasn't it, to insist that you shouldn't end an English sentence a preposition with. Up with this we should not put. (Anyone who wants to imagine Churchill making Yoda sounds is free to.)

Not everyone places/ed as much emphasis as you have on producing written language that can hold up to scrutiny. Most people, and I put myself in this latter group, seek merely to make themselves understood.

I'm afraid this amounts to a plea for incompetence, which I reject at the nonce and always shall and will. Arbitrarily. :p

They may, like me, have a feel for the way words run together and how they sound when spoken aloud.

As do I.

They may just wish to present the information, stage by stage, until their point is made. They may...if writing a sign, just want to convey simple information.

Another plea for incompetence? All right, why?

Now, I'll laugh with everyone else at the obvious gaffs and as an ex-literacy tutor I have a fairly large store of 'em in my memory.

Like leaving off the final E of gaffe and substituting for this a hooked snagger of fish and bales, or several of them -- though we'd agree that were we to get ourselves mixed up with the pointy parts of one or more gaffs, they would be about as obvious to us as anything is likely to get. Colo(u)rful too. And difficult to bear.

But making judgements about a person from their writing skills, beyond the extent to which they've learned a skill, is not something I would be inclined to do.

In my experience poor writing and muddled communication are so often associated with poor thinking that that is the way to bet. I am not afraid of making judgements; not the way some would like us to be -- that these some may be preserved from the social consequences of gaffes, or the general understanding that some people's ideas are just not very good. Political correctness is a form of intellectual tyranny towards that very end.

Your caring so much about getting the written version of the language right, does not make you better, nor does it make your words weigh more.

If you insist. As for me, I beg to differ, and I can make it felt. Or sandpaper.

Language can become art rather than engineering -- I'm good at the art end, and can follow the engineering.