Re: My first message.

On Fri, 6 Aug 1999, Boudewijn Rempt wrote:

> On Thu, 5 Aug 1999, Patrick Dunn wrote:
>
> >
> > Flame someone for their command of English?  Pish!  Native speakers can't
> > even speak English correctly!
> >
>
> I'm sure my English spelling has gotten worse because the
> greater part of the English I read today is on Internet -
> I've quite forgotten the rules about genitive _'s_ after
> seeing a discussion on it on comp.sys.sinclair (of all
> places!).
>
> Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt
>
Unfortunately (?) the genitive 's seems to be dying.  At least, among my
freshmen students.  I usually have approximately 80% who don't know how to
use the apostrophe, not only in forming genitives, but also in
contractions.  And "it's, its" sends them into epileptic siezures.

I don't really blame them: I see very few signs in stores that use the
apostrophe correctly.  In fact, in a tuxedo shop a while ago I
complimented the person behind the counter because all the apostrophes in
all the signs were used correctly.  I always say, "today the apostrophe,
tomorrow the world!"