grammar question

thatbags I'm not known for using one word when a dozen will do!! Thanks for the explanation and examples, they helped a lot - so simple once you 'get' it. I can't believe I struggled with it now. Mental block. Many thanks.

bags darling, shouldn't that be...the broomstick what/wot I enjoy...

instead

Alligators will love being adopted, mummsymags

Re the which/that discussion, both the examples I gave could miss out which/that entirely as well. That may be the simplest option in many cases!

e.g. I own this broomstick which [insert semi-colon here in stead]; I'm about to fly on it to the next gransnet party.

The broomstick that I enjoy flying on the most is over there.

I have just received a promotional email with this priceless example of a misplaced apostrophe:

Leed's Newest Open Air Theatre

Ooops.....sorry thatbags and the 'which' explanation - think I've got it now

thatbags just love your alligators.....adopting it if I may?
Anya your ICE is a cool rule, thanks for that
KatyK great comments

I am losing my hearing, to a degree (I hope) so have the subtitles on a lot of the time and find some of the interpretations hilarious. I cried with laughter a few weeks ago when Boris Johnson was called Irish Dancing - now we can differ on pronunciation but that was a beauty!!

It's not that hard...

No!!!

They can't abolish the apostrophe - all sorts of misunderstandings could ensue...

I like the greengrocers signs with apostrophes. I saw one where a potato owned some tomatoes, cucumbers and some eggs.

Potato's, tomatoes, cucumbers and eggs.

Elegran and duramjen - please don't stop using "so" at the beginning of a sentence, language is changing all the time it's just a personal thing with me. My sons use "so" all the time.

I used to teach the apostrophe and we had fun with Santa and his Grotto. i.e. Santas' Grotto. How many Santas how many Grottos.

There is talk about stopping the use of the apostrophe. It is complicated and before I taught it I had to look it up and study it quite closely.

There is a florist near me who has a chalk board outside which says
'we provide flowers for funeral's, wedding's, birthday's etc.' Every time I walk past I am tempted to rub out the apostrophes.

There seems to be a fashion now for leaving off the pronoun before the verb in when writing or typing - eg "Went shopping today", leaving out I or we, or "Saw Mary in the market" etc.
I can't make my mind up whether it's useful or not - it seems to speed things up.

I do that as well Elegran for the same reason. Should we from now on start sentences with Therefore?

I start sentences with "So . . ." when they do really have an observation that follows on logically from the previous one. Rather like starting a line of a mathematical proof with "Therefore . . ."

I'm in agreement with Falcon, beginning a sentence with 'So.....' is becoming very common and very irritating.

My real horrors though are the teeth-grindingly annoying 'off of' and the seemingly universal, but shudderingly awful 'should of'.

It's HAVE, SHOULD HAVE!

(Breathe and relax, you can cope )

Don't like the way people are beginning sentences with "so."
Also heard someone pronounce surreal as so real.

I also hate "see you later "especially when spoken by someone like a cashier or bus driver that you have no plans to see ever again. It was once said to me by the receptionist at a hotel several hundred miles from home !

Nvella: I loath the reverse of that one too (you're instead of your), along with who's instead of whose etc .

I can't remember the details, but I seem to remember spotting one of these mistakes or a very similar one fairly recently on a message accompanying funeral flowers from the Camerons. I wonder who wrote that!

Loathe your instead of you're and I'm another who hates "haitch"

Just want to say 'Hear, hear' to Cosafina. That's my huge bugbear too.

'Have you got . . . ?' 'Yes, I do.'

English usage distinguishes (or used to distinguish) between 'Do you have . . ?' i.e. 'Do you usually have, is it your habit to have . . . ? ' (answer: Yes, I do) and 'Have you got . . .?' i.e. 'Have you got . . . at this moment?' (answer: Yes, I have).

Purpledaffodil,
DS's girlfriend spent the evening with us and as she left at 11.30pm to go home, she said, 'See you later!".
I thought, good grief, is she coming back??!! Have I got to wait up??

anno, I share your despair!

And what about "See you later" when there is absolutely no likelihood you will see that person later. We had a neighbour who always used it when he left. Took me a while to realise that he wasn't going to reappear (and so I could stop hiding behind the sofa)

I'm pretty sure we have previously had a thread about misplaced apostrophes. Maybe even more than one! I wrote a unit for my mature students to teach them the correct use of the apostrophe. I don't know how much good it did. Why should they find it any more difficult than I did? And I never did!

It was only a matter of time, nannymeryl .

The one that really drives me crazy, probably because it seems to be the most frequently-seen error, is the use of an apostrophe in the possessive "its". There is barely a thread on the forum that isn't littered with them!

(Disclaimer - when I'm typing away on my laptop, my fingers have a mind of their own and sometimes stick an apostrophe into that very word without my permission! )