Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Making A Point Of Punctuation

I was amused by this fellow:
Frustrated by living in "St Johns Close", in Turnbridge Wells, Mr Gatward decided to buy a can of black paint and a craft brush before correcting the name to "St John's Close".
Is it to his credit
that he felt compelled to edit?

Let me admit that what he did is something I have often felt like doing.

But the story got me to thinking about the 5 reasons we tack an "s" on the end of a word:

1) to make a noun plural: I dream of dogs.
2) to make a verb third person singular: The dog dreams when it sleeps.
3) to make a noun possessive: I found the dog's toy.
4) to make a noun both plural and possessive: I found the dogs' toy.
5) to form a contraction between a noun and "is": The dog's hungry.

In written language,
the apostrophe helps us to tame
all these confusing "s"s
that pretty much sound the same.

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