(no subject)

[solafiamma]

I keep opening the update page and staring at the blank update box until the white space hurts my eyes. Nothin'. Wordless in Gaza. I don't think I've had a lobotomy since my last post. I'd know, right?

I think it's probably all silveryscrape's fault. Poking around the fl, trying to catch up on everything I've missed, I came across her post on the apostrophe and whether or not to use that icky old second "s", and it's shorted out my brain.

Because, dude, to my eyes that second "s" is an aesthetic abomination. The oh-so-very-sad thing about it, though, is that after spending a couple of obsessive hours checking two billion and five grammar and punctuation references, I am forced to conclude that the overwhelming weight of grammatical opinion seems to be on Mary's side, even if some grammarians concede rather grudgingly (in that tone of, "No, of course you don't have to take off your shoes, I've just shampooed the carpets but I can always do them again) that it isn't necessarily incorrect to omit the second "s".

I want very badly to not give a shit one way or the other, to just opt for the more popular usage and move on with whatever I’m writing (which at the moment would be nothing at all, unless you count this), but I do care. That horrid "s's" drives me wiggy! I hate it!! (Almost as much as I hate double exclamation marks, but I'm using them anyway because this is one of those moments of great turmoil that actually requires a double exclamation.)

Anyway, this is really just a long-winded preamble to my giving in, not very graciously at all, to the inevitability of the double "s" (and thanking my lucky stars that I've only written six stories, which will make the the clean up that much easier).

Sob.

Comments

[lilysaid.livejournal.com]

I'm shocked every time I see someone go "Really? I've been doing it that way forever, and that's how I prefer it, but since someone made a very vocal and adamant post about it, I will change my ways."

I'm sticking with Chris', thankyouverymuch. Fuck the extra S!

[ex_halo669]

right with you, sister. the extra S can fuck right off. I'm not changing a damn thing.

[sola-fiamma.livejournal.com]

No, but, it's not just the post, Lily. Every grammar reference site I've checked says the same thing! If I'd even found the remotest balance of opinion out there, I wouldn't be changing, but the vast majority of British, American and Canadian grammarians really do seem to be in agreement on this issue.

Oh, please prove me wrong . . .

[lilysaid.livejournal.com]

If it were incorrect, I'd worry about it. But it's not, so I'm not. :)

[lilysaid.livejournal.com]

In my haste, I forgot to mention that all of my nitpicking English professors accept s' without blinking an eye. And that's all I'm gonna say. :)

[jewelianna.livejournal.com]

I'm still maintaining that I was taught it was wrong, therefore it is wrong. s' is the way to go. Growing up with a last name that ends in -s, you learn these things very early on so as not to repeatedly lose points on essays.

Until people stop ending sentences in prepositions, I'm not changing a thing.

[sola-fiamma.livejournal.com]

Well, as far as that argument goes, I was taught that a lot of things were wrong which, in fact weren't. The sources I checked were Fowler's, Strunk, Baker, Oxford University Press, the American Heritage Book of English Usage, the Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation, the Purdue online writing lab and the Chicago Manual of Style. Since those are the sources I tend to refer to time and again for answers to those pesky little grammatical questions that pop up from time to time, I've decided to go with them.

Hee! Fowler (2nd edition, 1965) on this very subject:

"It was once a cherished superstition that prepositions must be kept true to their name and placed before the word they govern in spite of the incurable English instinct for putting them late. . . . The fact is that. . . . even now immense pains are sometimes expended in changing spontaneous into artificial English. . . . Those who lay down the universal principle that final prepositions are 'inelegant' are unconsciously trying to deprive the English language of a valuable idiomatic resource, which has been used freely by all our greatest writers except those whose instinct for English idiom has been overpowered by notions of correctness derived from Latin standards. The legitimacy of the prepositional ending in literary English must be uncompromisingly maintained. . . .
In avoiding the forbidden order, unskillful handlers of words often fall into real blunders. . . ." (473-474)

He goes on: "the 'preposition' is in fact [often] the adverbial particle of a phrasal verb, [and] no choice is open to us; it cannot be wrested from its partner" (475)

And now I'll stop being obnoxious, I promise. :)

[i-naiad.livejournal.com]

That made my brain hurt. Oh the joys of being an instictive grammarian instead of a taught one. :)

[sola-fiamma.livejournal.com]

There are definite advantages . . .

[nonchop.livejournal.com]

OMG, SOLA! Does this mean I have to go through your 171894028 pages of stories and change all of the extra "s's"? Because I HATE that plan. I am with lily on this one. One ranty post is not really going to change the way I write or spell.

[sola-fiamma.livejournal.com]

Maybe we can just set up two sites, one where all the stories have the "s's" construction and the other with the elegant "s'".

And, dude, as I said in my post, I made the decision:

after spending a couple of obsessive hours checking two billion and five grammar and punctuation references (See my response to jewelianna for a very incomplete list of the sources I checked.)

Of course I'm not changing my writing on the basis of one ranty post and, frankly, I'm kind of cranky that this is the assumption people are making, especially given that I quite explicitly said that I had checked TWO BILLION AND FIVE sources.

And now I'm going to do as Jessa bids and lighten the fuck up!

[nonchop.livejournal.com]

You coming online?

[sola-fiamma.livejournal.com]

You betcha!

[nonchop.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[callsigns.livejournal.com]

I've decided that I'm commenting with this icon to every post that addresses the apostrophe question. Why? Because it's fun! :)

*hugs*

[sola-fiamma.livejournal.com]

I love your icon, and it totally should hound the apostrophe question wherever it lands.

Unfortunately, I didn't lighten up soon enough and got cranky about supposed aspersions on my character. I'm not a sheep! I'm not! Baa!

*Hugs you back*