I’m sure one arm of the confusion is due to the collapse of periods as a marker of initials. When I was in grade school, the only correct way to write T.V. was with periods. Now, I’d never do so, nor would I use periods for BBC, etc., and hundreds of other forms.
This then creates a problem when you’re trying to indicate a plural, especially if you’re also doing so using all caps. That’s how you end up with signs that say “TURN OFF ALL TV’S AND RADIOS”. Which in turn contributes to a situation in which a great many people no longer know what’s right.
I think that the folks who gave us the ‘whole language’ teaching revolution (which sprang from the observation that it’s possible to teach people to read/write by reading and writing, rather than by rules and drill, because humans are programmed to learn this stuff) were correct, but that this system breaks down when it comes to places in which the language is in flux. Then, observation or copying stops working because the world itself isn’t consistent enough to indicate which is the correct example..
Yes, but then you might be mistaken for an android. Everyone knows that Dr. Sung’s early models, including Data, are incapable of using contractions. It’s the android shibboleth!
This reminds me of something I read in Dave Barry’s writings. He also remarked on a few other peculiarities of hand-lettered signs, such as the use of the word except and of extraneous quotation marks. He gave an example along these lines: We do not except “personal” check’s.
I notice, by the way, that there is an advertisement at the top of the screen for “Waltons Irish Whistles.”
I’ve given up trying to correct people. Two colleagues at work do scare quotes, and they’re not listening or learning. They’re both over 30 so I can’t blame recent drops in educational standards. I think they are just stupid.
I’ve also noted a lot of recent word substitutions on other forums - spade for spayed, peek for peak etc. Generally I can figure out what they mean, and it is not worth getting upset over.
to which an appropriate response could be: “Great! I’ll write a personal check then.”
Unless, of course, what they really meant was that they don’t except checks from overly-familiar Czechs, and just spelled Czech wrong. (this might explain the apostrophe. I like to give folks the benefit of the doubt. Though, if you happen to be a “personal” Hungarian, they might except you from the exception. In which case–stinks for you. You’ll have to pay in cash or by credit card.)
I think, though, it would be useful here to re-post a link to the Stephen Fry podcast originally brought to my attention by Martin Milner himself: I think it’s the one called “language.”
Excellent therapy if you find yourself getting a little too hung up on this stuff.
This is of particular interest to me as a foreign language-learner, in that if I can ever communicate with any comprehensibility in…say…Japanese, I hope it won’t bother anyone too much when I commit multiple errors roughly equivalent to misplacing apostrophes.
Knowing I can barely communicate in the Euro-based languages I’ve attempted inclines me to cut people some slack.
Scare quotes aren’t automatically wrong. Like any other mode of writing, they can be mis~ or overused (mostly the latter) but they exist because they do something that no other way of writing the phrase can do.
I would agree. When they’re used with ironic intention it’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Here is an example of a silly usage:
I used to pass a house on my kid’s former school-commute route. They had one of those little shingle signs on a post out by the road, announcing who lived there. It said: The “Bensons” (not the actual name…it’s slipping my mind at the moment.)
But it always caused me to wonder, with a chuckle, why were these people pretending to be the Bensons? Were they in witness protection, and their actual name was Hoffa or something?
Disturbingly, the use of the plural with a collective noun is rampant on this board! It began not long ago and has now infiltrated the posts of those on this side of the Atlantic.
Interesting. Quirk & Greenbaum always regarded that as normal British usage, and from a descriptivist point of view. It’s just an arbitrary semantic choice and emphasis, no? Either seems perfectly OK to me in context.
Then you have, for example, “The Who is a great band, but The Beatles is a better one.”
