Discussions of the Day

Oh! I hadn't noticed Lara reply. Which I consider to be unnecessary apologising.

It's quite hard to pluralise an anonym.

I see GNHQ have cunningly got round the plural DH problem...

What's an anonym?? Something you don't want anybody to know the name of?

Well, I would, but if I click on Contact us it says 'the default mail client is not properly installed'...

I will consider my wrist well and truly slapped.

#feelinghuffy

There is quite a good online course on grammar from Bristol university I think?

www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/grammar/grammar_tutorial/page_41.htm

The apostrophe in plurals of such things as DH is a debatable issue, as there is a school of thought that regards the apostrophe as indicating that some letters are missing. I used to work on a magazine and the editor insisted that it should be there.

But a lot of letters are missing already in DH - ear and usband - and there are no apostrophes in that. The plural of one DH is two (or more) DHs just as the plural of dear husband is dear husbands.

Yes - I get that - but some people disagree, as in my editor!

Yes. But it just seems to be more natural to put an apostrophe in. Not for the usual missing letter reason, but because it looks better.

Oh, who gives a flying flip anyway!

It doesn't look better to me - it looks awful!
And it may be sad that I do give a flying flip, but that's just me...

Me too. My eyes are drawn to them immediately.

I wouldn't use an apostrophe there.

If you use an apostrophe there, you need one in DH. Two even.

Some things bother me and some don't. Question marks are ok.
But a misplaced apostrophe screams at me.

I went to Secondary School followed by a 2 year Secretarial Course.
No A levels for me.....family could not afford the cost of Grammar School requisites. At Secondary S edchool I did do a great deal of typing (on an old Imperial machine that went ding at the end of each line) which was to a very high level with distinction accuracy grades. Also shorthand to 130 words per minute.

Perhaps the use of correct punctuation has gone the way of shorthand. I consider poor punctuation to be sloppy.

My formal education did not go to Third Level but many years of constructing a good letter obo my employer has stood me in good stead.

My thoughts entirely about the need for two apostrophes in DH or none at all. I think everyone would agree it would look ridiculous with two. Consider longer acronyms too - for example, G'N'H'Q' .

There is a similar debate regarding decades: 90s or 90's? I cannot for the life of me see what the apostrophe is for and yet it is the example without the apostrophe that spell check has underlined. If anything, there should be one at the beginning, to indicate omission of '19'. For my money it should be '90s, but again, spell check disagrees with me. (Though I do realise that spell check is probably American and can therefore be disregarded )