Today's exercise in apostrophe abuse...

[tahnan]

...or, why the IMDb really just shouldn't allow comments. The user comment on Steven Soderbergh's Kafka:

Despite it's excellent 1st hour with Jeromy Iron's playing a quirky insurance inspector investigating the strangeness surrounding his partner's disappearance, the movie get's lost in a Frankenstein mode and it never returns.

One of those four apostrophes is actually correct. One of them is a mistake so common it's easy not to care any more. Pluralizing a verb with an apostrophe is egregious.

But spelling "Jeremy Irons" with an apostrophe is just beyond the pale. If anyone needs me today, I'll be at True Grounds, mourning the loss of literacy in America.

Comments

All good S's deserve apostrophe's

[renniekins.livejournal.com]

De'spite it's excellent 1'st hour with Jeromy Iron's playing a quirky in'surance in'spector inve'stigating the strangene's's 'surrounding hi's partner's di'sappearance, the movie get's lo'st in a Franken'stein mode and it never return's.

*giggle*

[in-parentheses.livejournal.com]

Not that I think it will make you feel any better, but I think they meant to write "Irons'" rather than spell his name "Iron's." I've noticed that construction becoming more common (using a verb as a noun with a possessive subject - I'm sure there's a name for that, but I don't know what it is). It's awkward and maybe not correct, but not as bad as just sticking a random apostrophe in the dude's name.

...Yeah, I don't feel any better either.

Re: All good S's deserve apostrophe's

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

*twitch* *twitch*

Clearly the last time I saw you I didn't hit you nearly hard enough with the padded foam sword's.

[bookishfellow.livejournal.com]

You mean 'sword's.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that construction becoming more common (using a verb as a noun with a possessive subject - I'm sure there's a name for that, but I don't know what it is).

You may be surprised to learn that this is actually correct. To quote The Real Thing by Tom Stoppard:

I'm showing an interest in your work. I thought you liked me showing an interest in your work. Sorry: my showing. Save the gerund and screw the whale.

In fact, English has three different gerund constructions; while, prescriptively, the possessive is the correct one, all three are common:

Sam eating my cookies made me happy.
Sam's eating my cookies made me happy.
Sam's eating of my cookies made me happy.

So using the possessive before the "-ing" form of the verb is in fact classically correct and slowly slipping out of English. Unfortunately, in this case, I fear that may be giving the author too much credit.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

'sblood, you're right!

[flynngrrl.livejournal.com]

Ah, but the beauty of the internet's is that that person could be's from anywhere in the World.

[mlstrm.livejournal.com]

This reminded me of Lisa and the anagrams game on The Simpsons where all she could come up with is Jeremy's Iron.

I agree that in about 90% of all situations, there shouldn't be comments. But I don't wanna sound like an elitist. :)

[in-parentheses.livejournal.com]

I did know that, actually. (So there! :) ) I just meant that in this case and in other cases when I've seen it used lately, it's awkward, maybe so much so as to not be correct. Upon re-reading it, I retract that - it does seem technically correct, though there are better ways to say it. But the correctness sure does get lost in all the errant apostrophes and misspellings of both the poor guy's names.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

That's the difference between you and me. I'm perfectly happy sounding like an elitist. :-)

[dougo.livejournal.com]

But in that case it should be "Irons's".

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Well...even the Chicago Manual of Style wavered on this for a long time. (I think more recent editions have finally taken a definitive stand.) The (old) position of the CMS is that one writes "Irons'" if one says "eye-ernz", and "Irons's" if one says "eye-enrzez", as if Gollum were pluralizing "iron". Myself, I always put the "-ez" at the end, even when speaking of Moses's exodus from Egypt, and thus I always use the "-'s" in the spelling, but the other is also correct, or at least has long been considered also correct.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

I do as you do, and I'm going to continue to pretend it's The Only Correct Way, Because Jeremy Irons Is Not Plural. I actually thought that even people who wrote "Jesus'" pronounced it "jee-zussez" until I watched a documentary where the narrator kept saying "jee-zus disciples" which kept pissing me off.

[arfur]

Eats, Shoots & Runs much?

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Sigh. It saddens me to realize that I sound like Lynne Truss, because I think she's an idiot. I got less than a chapter into her book before setting it down and forgetting to pick it up again, because it just failed to interest me at all. The introduction, however, actively annoyed me, because she insisted that "Two Weeks Notice" had to have an apostrophe in the title. I am nowhere near as convinced as she seems to be that "one week notice" or "one month notice" is wrong, so I see nothing wrong with the title.

Ah well.

[saxikath]

"One week notice" and "one month notice" both sound wrong to me. Thinking about it logically, I'm not sure why they do, but they do. Possibly because it's kind of possessivish -- "notice of one week" becoming "one week's notice." (I think I don't mean possessive, exactly, but I'm not up on all the proper terms. If I were talking about Latin, I'd say it belonged in the genitive.)

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Websearching seemed to indicate that at least one styleguide recommended hypenating "one-week notice" and "two-weeks notice" when not possessive. On the other hand, I recall the CMS urging writers to avoid hyphenated nominal modifiers except when strictly necessary. Does "He took a one week vacation" sound more natural? (Which also paraphrases as something like "a vacation of one week", perhaps.)

I think in Latin it is a genitive, but not a possessive genitive; something more like a partitive genitive, except not. I think there's a measure genitive? Or maybe it's the material genitive, like "He carried a shield of bronze"? Which certainly doesn't rephrase as "He carried a bronze's shield."

[arfur]

Yeah -- I'm kinda disappointed with the book too. She's not sure if she wants to preach, teach, or just have fun being snarky. When she's the latter, I actually enjoy it quite a bit -- and there's a tiny bit of history-of-punctuation that's interesting too -- but overall, I don't get why it got elevated so high.

*shrug* oh well.

also

[arfur]

I don't think she addresses the difference between the em dash and the en dash, which I used to know, but has been bugging me of late. waaah.

-bb, okay, I'll let it go now. :-)

[foggyb.livejournal.com]

By comparison, "one day seminar," "three-minute egg," and "five-year plan" don't sound wrong to me, so "one week notice" and "two weeks notice" don't sound wrong to me either. (Feel free to criticize my hyphenation on each of these phrases however.)