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HELP - Possesive form.
If the apostrophe was abolished tomorrow, it would be confusing only for those who are used to seeing it in print.
Within a generation, as people learned to read and write without it, it would not be missed.
How could you learn to read without the apostrophe? It's like trying to learn to read without the full stop or the comma.
If you read the term "The trees leaves", how would you know whether it is ONE tree or SEVERAL trees? You can't tell from that sentence. But if the sentence read "The trees' leaves" then you know that there are several trees. You can't read things properly without the apostrophe.
"The trees leaves." That's a stupid way of writing it, because you don't know if "trees" is singular or plural.
But... "The tree's leaves." "Tree's" is singular. "The trees' leaves". "Tree" is plural. So there's no confusion. And we still need the apostrophe even if it's obvious whether the world is singular or plural. e.g. "The mans car." "Mans" is obviously singular, because the plural would be "mens", but the apostrophe would still be needed to show that it's a possessive. It would be "The men's car". The apostrophe goes before the S even if it's singular because "men" doesn't end in S in the plural.
I meant that the apostrophe goes before the S even if it's plural.
"Man's" "Men's" "Child's" "Children's" "Woman's" "Women's" Only if the plural ends in an S does the apostrophe go after the S. If the plural doesn't end in S, such as "children", the apostrophe goes before the S.
All you've done here is demonstrate how the apostrophe is used in written English.
You haven't proven why it is "needed." I go back to my original statement: "Within a generation, as people learned to read and write without it, it would not be missed."
I heard a story that the famed "Greengrocer's apostrophe" is now used deliberately as it's been proved (don't ask me how!) to prompt people to go in and actually buy the "apostrophated" (?) goods. Apparently it amuses people - maybe that's why they go in and give the guy some custom! Maybe they go in and point out the "error" to the guy but he just grins, winks and the customer simply HAS to buy the stuff.
Notice outside the shop or market stall: Apple's 27p a kilo Banana's 41p a kilo
"You haven't proven why it is "needed." "
I've explained about ten trillion times why it's needed. It's needed so that you know whether something is singular or plural. Again, let me show you. "The thief stole the boys computer games." That sentence is confusing, because we don't know whether the word "boys" is SINGULAR or PLURAL. So we NEED to put in the apostrophe. So, if there is one boy, it's "The thief stole the boy's computer games." If there's more than one it's "The thief stole the boys' computer games." The apostrophe is NEEDED so you know whether the word "boys" is singular or plural. Otherwise, how the hell would you know?
"Notice outside the shop or market stall:
Apple's 27p a kilo Banana's 41p a kilo " But that's bad English, though. An apostrophe isn't needed. It should just be normal plural nouns "apples" and "bananas." The first term shows that the "27p a kilo" belongs to an apple.
One question.
If you SAY: "The thief stole the boys computer games" How do I know if it's "boy's" singular or "boys'" plural? How does the apostrophe help me?
You're right, you can't make the distinction in the spoken version.
But that is one advantage of written English (and difference between spoken and written English) that is actually sort of nice. There is no reason why the written form has to slavishly follow the spoken one, especially when a change, like removing the apostrophes, would actually start causing ambiguities.
There's no reason the written form has to slavishly follow the spoken language at all (Chinese calligraphy is an excellent example).
I'm not saying for one minute we MUST abandon the apostrophe. I'm simply calling attention to the fact that it's a superfluous and wholly artificial written device (as all written devices are), and entirely inessential to the English language.
I thought I read somewhere that the possessive 's was actually a holdover; that in older forms of English, you would create a possessive construction by writing something like say, Tom his forum. This in time was shortened to Tom's forum. (Presumably there would have originally been a feminine equivalent, such as Uriel her dog, but it died out, probably because r's are harder than s's to add onto the ends of words). So the possessive 's would actually be a remnant contraction from an actual extinct usage, rather than a wholly artificial invention.
May I have a list of a few breif words that are sigular possesive pronouns and plural possesive pronouns?
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