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Thursday 19 September 2013

apostrophes


I know, I know, a lot of people don't understand about apostrophes, and historically they weren't blah blah blah, and, yes, there are much more important things than punctuation marks (like love, life, health and happiness) BUT....

...deep breath...

...if I were going to buy a car, it wouldn't be from someone who produced an advert like this: 


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I mean, if no one in the company can be bothered to work out how to use apostrophes, what chance is there of their bothering to understand really hard things, like crankshafts and catalytic converters?

Ah well, I would probably have been too busy wondering what cargiant means to buy anything from them anyway.

Word To Use Today: car. This word arrived in English in the 1300s from the Anglo-French carre, which is related to the Latin carra, a two-wheeled wagon, but is probably of Celtic origin. There's an Old Irish word carr.

2 comments:

  1. Ah, apostrophes.
    One usage that irks me is when people confuse 'your' and 'you're'.
    Most of the time it's very straightforward is it not?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, it is - but when I read your comment I had a sudden horrid feeling I might have made this mistake somewhere in the post.

      Isn't irk a splendid word for being, well, irked?

      Delete

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