Upvote for the title alone.

I just 'spooged.

HOLY SHIT, HERE COME'S AN S!!

This guy's fucken funny.

Boy. He didn't even say anything about the position of the apostrophe in plural possessives, nor possessive "its" which doesn't use an apostrophe.

I lol'd.


oops.

^ That's actually ok because it's substituting for the 'e'.

Apostrophes are only used for contractions! They are in place of letters that are no longer pronounced in the spoken language.

For example, the possessive used to be explicit. For example, "Bob's car" used to be "Bob his car". The apostrophe is used in place of the "hi" because we no longer pronounce those letters in modern English. The feminine form got dropped completely, in case you are curious.

This explains the problem with "it's" and "its". We used to say something like "The wagon its wheel came off." Shortened, that would be "Its wheel came off." There's no contraction there, it's just assumed that you know what "it" is. And from there you can see the only proper use of the apostrophe is when you are contracting "it is".

"The wagon isn't here. Its wheel came off. It's in the shop."

See? Not possessive, just contraction.

Don't get me started on "your" and "you're".

Tags for this video have been changed from 'grammar, possessive, omissions, not, plural' to 'apostrophes, misused, grammar, possessive, omissions, not, plural' - edited by calvados

I was actually tempted to downvote this. I've never felt that way about a video before tonight. This is a first. Listen, I'm a language student; I know how much time you have to spend memorizing all those arcane rules. But, people getting pissed about grammar irks me.

Also, I've heard a slightly different explanation of our use of apostrophes for possessives. I agree that it had to do with a contraction of an old form, but rather than a contraction of the possessive, it was an elision of part of an obsolete genitive case ending.

E.g.: "cartes wheel" eventually became "cart's wheel" as the use of inflected endings declined in English. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe_(mark)#Possessive_apostrophe

One final thing: Considering I began typing this comment to show my disapproval for this video's rant, I feel that I may have nullified my own argument by going on and on like I have ended up doing. I apologize.

Apparently my English teacher oversimplified when explaining it to me... Still, though the word 'his' or 'its' was not the portion being contracted, it was pretty close to the mark. It's still letters from the old possessive form being dropped and replaced with an apostrophe.

Thanks for clearing that up. And those Wikipedia grammar entries are pretty detailed!

I'm always ready to give a pretentious, self-satisfied rant about pretentious, self-satisfied rants whenever you need one!

You're (there's a good apostrophe right as I'm typing this) welcome.

>> ^Sketch:
Boy. He didn't even say anything about the position of the apostrophe in plural possessives, nor possessive "its" which doesn't use an apostrophe.


And he didn't get into pluralized abbreviations "CD's, DVD's, etc..." which I presume is still technically wrong but more accepted.

The one that gets my biscuit burnin' is when people say, "the 90's." It's 90s.

I do love these vids. Grammar is something to respect.

I agree with this 100%

If you don't know whether you should be using an apostrophe don't use it.

The title is worth more than the clip. Fun.

>> ^RussianBeard:
I was actually tempted to downvote this. I've never felt that way about a video before tonight. This is a first. Listen, I'm a language student; I know how much time you have to spend memorizing all those arcane rules. But, people getting pissed about grammar irks me.


Yea, it's like people who are really anal about using all of mathematics' rules correctly.

;-)

Language is evolving you guy's.

Just because language is evolving doesn't mean anything goes.
Juz becus langwich is evulvin doesn't not meen anything cans.

Methink's Im going to subscribe to thi's guys YouTube channel. Its comforting hearing someone el'se vocalize the thing's that irk "me" about all the bad grammar running rampant in the world. Nice to know Im not a loan.

>> ^budzos:
Language is evolving you guy's.


ARGH! MY BRAIN! (clutches at skull)

Steve's right!

One thing to keep in mind is that one time you wouldn't use an apostrophe in the case of possession would be 'it.' I see it all the time. That is, "it's not going to be there in the morning" is okay because you're removing letters in "it is," however, "I have noticed that it's color is blue" is INCORRECT because you don't use an apostrophe within a possessive pronoun. 'Its' is a possessive pronoun, just like 'his,' 'hers,' 'theirs,' etc.

It's nice to see someone being as OCD about the English language as I am in my head whenever I encounter someone making an obvious mistake. These videos' entertainment values have never failed to amuse, contrary to what you might think based on their inherently boring topic--grammar.

He should do one on 'their, they're, there' and 'your, you're.' Those really bug me as well.

That "no apostrophe on 'its'" thing bothers me a lot. It's supposed to have an apostrophe, but, from what an English professor back in college explained, it's acceptable to exclude the apostrophe because all the morons who read newspapers get confused when reading a sentence like "The siftbot nuked it's community," reading it as "The siftbot nuked it is community." Really?

Some other things with regard to syntactically valid punctuation that bother me are commas at the end of a list with three items and punctuation within quotation marks.

When someone lists 3 or more items, they separate each item with a comma except before the last. For example:
> The cow ate hay, grass and wheat.
That sentence would much better be written:
> The cow ate hay, grass, and wheat.
Why? I'll tell you why. It's confusing because some of the items in your list could include "and" within them. For example:
> The cow ate fish and chips, steak and spaghetti and meatballs.
It's still acceptable syntax to use all the commas, but it's also valid to exclude the last one, and nowadays most people seem to do the latter.

The punctuation in quotation marks thing is bothersome because you should be allowed to validly emphasize your statement without making it appear that your emphasis is part of the quote. For example, you'd have to write:
> Did you hear Obama scream, "We're going to the mattresses?!"
That makes it look like Obama is asking a question. It'd be clearer to write:
> Did you hear Obama scream, "We're going to the mattresses!"?
Sure it doesn't look as pretty but it's a lot less ambiguous.

My biggest pet peeve of all is "should of", "could of", and "would of". Since the 3rd grade I get douche chills when I hear it, and immediately write the speaker off as a dunce.

About lists, I find it makes things much more clear to always use a comma between items. Sometimes I go crazy and use semicolons when there are items in the list that need to have commas within them.

^Yes! Add to the list people who use the phrase "that's a whole nother story."

"Nother" is not a word, folks.

The benefit of the apostraphe is to separate an unfamiliar name from the modifier that makes it posessive, so that you can parse it correctly instead of assuming the final s is part of the unfamiliar name. I suspect that is why apostraphes are never used in common posessive pronouns like his, hers, its, ours, and theirs.

In that vein, it is easy to see why people would extend its use towards separating an unfamiliar noun from the modifier that makes it plural. It keeps the name intact and separate from the modifiers. Per habit I don't like the use of apostrahpes in plurals, but there doesn't seem to be a good reason to oppose it unless it causes ambiguity. I don't know of any situation where you can substitute a plural noun for a posessive noun, without making any other changes to the sentence, and retain grammatical correctness and reasonable meaning.

And along those lines, anal grammar rules remind me of hamming codes... The redundancy is not entirely useless. It can be beneficial in detecting or correcting errors in transmission. So go ahead and follow rules of grammar.

jwray: Ouch. Your post really bothers me with the extreme amount of misspellings. No offense, but when discussing things such as grammar, you should try to make sure you're following the rules yourself.

lucky760: It's not a true word, per se, but usually, when written, it's spelled with an apostrophe: 'nother. That is to say, it's slang. It's like saying "hey, y'all wanna come down an' hang out with the fellas?" Some of those aren't words either, but it's a means of stitching verbal accent into written form. However, using it in that way also violates the sentence structure, since you can't really say "a whole another story" without looking like a wiener.

budzos: oh man; I should have seen that coming. I'm so with you there.

No way. I will not accept your forged reality.

There's an enormous difference between saying "a whole nother" and saying "an' hang out." In the former, if what you claim is true, that "nother" is short for "another", you'd be saying "a whole another" which is obviously a slap in the face of the English language.

Using a word that doesn't exist can't always just be explained away as slang, however comforted you feel by doing so.

I also said what you just said, which you obviously did not read, so:
"However, using it in that way also violates the sentence structure, since you can't really say 'a whole another story' without looking like a wiener."

Basically, we agree.

See, my biggest problems are with reading, not writing. I got halfway through your comment and replied. Didn't see the rest of that bit that I basically duplicated until now.

Hello and welcome to 2003
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eats_shoots_and_leaves

I'm a little bit of a grammar Nazi, and I try not to push it on others. I've always hated the fact that there's no apostrophe in a phrase such as, "it's wing." "It" is talking about something's wing. Possessive. So why no apostrophe? I had to use one when I said "something's wing," because it's also possessive.

I don't want any explanations. I just want to keep hating it.

Edit: I just read lucky's post. Such kinship.

>> ^RussianBeard:
I was actually tempted to downvote this. I've never felt that way about a video before tonight. This is a first. Listen, I'm a language student; I know how much time you have to spend memorizing all those arcane rules. But, people getting pissed about grammar irks me.
Also, I've heard a slightly different explanation of our use of apostrophes for possessives. I agree that it had to do with a contraction of an old form, but rather than a contraction of the possessive, it was an elision of part of an obsolete genitive case ending.
E.g.: "cartes wheel" eventually became "cart's wheel" as the use of inflected endings declined in English. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe_(mark)#Possessive_apostrophe
One final thing: Considering I began typing this comment to show my disapproval for this video's rant, I feel that I may have nullified my own argument by going on and on like I have ended up doing. I apologize.


just don't apostrophize or proselytize.

I cant' be arsed to does proper word's.

Nobody ever says "should of", "could of", and "would of". It's "should've", "could've", and "would've". Now if somebody writes "should of", then they're an idiot.


On another subject:

mine
yours
his
hers
its
ours
theirs

WHY IS THAT SO DIFFICULT?

Nobody ever says "should of", "could of", and "would of".

Uh, yes, they do. People who don't read much do it all the time. Are you for real!?

Trust me, I can discern the difference between hearing "could've" which is correct, and hearing "could of" which gives me douche chills. Stupid people do it CONSTANTLY.

You make no sense. If they write "could of" why would they use a contraction of "could have" when they speak? They write it and say it the same way, because they are fucking illiterate.

While we're at it, how about people who say "I SEEN that yesterday"? Ugh, it's such a turn-off.

I don't generally misuse apostrophes accept with a single word, the word Its. I write it's all the time without even realizing that I'm doing it. I was an English major, I should know this shit but I repeatedly use 'it's' when I should be using 'its'.

Other then that I use it properly for the most part, even when to properly address a name, which I find a great many people get wrong.

What, no thing-we-should-be-more-worried-about end-of-the-world montage clip at the end of this?

>> ^budzos:
Uh, yes, they do. People who don't read much do it all the time. Are you for real!?
Trust me, I can discern the difference between hearing "could've" which is correct, and hearing "could of" which gives me douche chills. Stupid people do it CONSTANTLY.
You make no sense. If they write "could of" why would they use a contraction of "could have" when they speak? They write it and say it the same way, because they are fucking illiterate.
While we're at it, how about people who say "I SEEN that yesterday"? Ugh, it's such a turn-off.


Perhaps you can give an example? Just because somebody puts a bit more emphasis on the "uh" between "could" and "ve" doesn't mean they actually think they are saying "of". I think you're being overly critical of an accent. What region are you hearing this in?

Ever see someone write "half to," as in "You half to watch this movie?"

(See? There again is that punctuation inside quotes thing that bugs me so much.)

Apostrophe catastrophe.

>> ^ForgedReality:
jwray: Ouch. Your post really bothers me with the extreme amount of misspellings. No offense, but when discussing things such as grammar, you should try to make sure you're following the rules yourself.

Every word in that post is spelled correctly. The spellchecker turns up nothing. Produce a specific example if there's really a problem.

And... I'll start paragraphs with "And" and abuse ellipsis if I please.

>> ^jwray:
Every word in that post is spelled correctly. The spellchecker turns up nothing. Produce a specific example [edited].

apostraphe -> apostrophe
posessive -> possessive

Why are you denying that people say this when you know goddamn well they write it? The same people who write "could of" are the ones who say "could of."

I am from Canada, right around Toronto. I'm not hearing accents. I'm not hearing people say "could've" and imagining it's "could of". I'm hearing people clearly and distinctly pronounce it as two words. Stupid fucking people say it. WHY ARE YOU DENYING IT!?!?!?!?!!?!

I was arguing with someone on Monday, basically someone I've decided to cut out of my life, and they were leaving me voicemails saying I "could of" done this and I "should of" said that, and it could not of been more definitely true that he was saying "COULD OF", not "could've". I'VE BEEN HEARING IT FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS YOU F***.

I actually saw a comment somewhere on the web that mis-wrote "contradictory" as "contra dictionary". No joke. I laughed so hard. I just had visions of Che Guevara and Noah Webster getting together to start a revolution.

I've also seen "all intents and purposes" written as "all intensive purposes".
Ahh, the internet! it's so intense!

I see (and hear, who'da thunk people say what they write?) "for all intensive purposes" all the time.

Gnargnar, that's one I haven't thought of. I guess people think that when you write something like, "the music of the 60's", it's correct because the music BELONGS to the 60s. But that doesn't make sense either because it doesn't belong to "the 60", so I imagine what they really mean to say is, "music of the 60s's"? Or should that be 60s'? Fuck.

>> ^gnargnar:
The one that gets my biscuit burnin' is when people say, "the 90's." It's 90s.


No, it's actually '90s. But it's perfectly acceptable to not use one when you should have.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Monday, March 16th, 2009 4:14pm PDT - promote requested by MarineGunrock.

I like the video because its well presented however.

Gramma has been established over time and has evolved like all good languages word meanings change over time as the protocal of language changes . gramma will be the same who cares if people start using it difrently ore doing random ass shit so long as its understandable and convays the data that the person had in mind to comunicate it dosent matter if they wrote pritty dog shit images.

the histroy of english language and how it has changed should be presurved and to know how people have used language and what the avrage and formaly acepted ways of doing things are should be rmeberd and understood, however when it comes to down and dirty conversatoin , who gives a fuck , if the other person dosent understand ore the person convaying the piont relises th eother person dosent understand then it can be clarified , thankfully we dont live in a world where it takes 10 pigeons and 2 months to send a letter to sumone 400 miles away.

>> ^budzos:
I see (and hear, who'da thunk people say what they write?) "for all intensive purposes" all the time.


Somebody wrote that in a mass email at work recently. I couldn't believe it.