People at work use s' -- our ED's name ends with s -- and it irks me, because then it looks like his name is plural, if you know what I mean.
Wash: I didn't think you were one for rituals and such. Mal: I'm not, but it'll keep the others busy for a while. No reason to concern them with what's to be done.
'Bushwhacked'
The Great Write Way
A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.
Jesse - Nov 18, 2002 9:43:15 am PST #332 of 10001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.
Rebecca Lizard - Nov 18, 2002 9:43:55 am PST #333 of 10001
You sip / say it's your crazy / straw say it's you're crazy / as you bicycle your soul / with beauty in your basket
Okay, so, it's not just an obscure religious act of honor. So any other English word with the same s-situation would have the same deal?
This is so fucking weird. I've never noticed I was off. Think of all the papers and stories I've written with the wrong things in! I want to march back to the nuns that taught me and complain.
P.M. Marc - Nov 18, 2002 9:44:48 am PST #334 of 10001
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear
Technically, my name is plural, so I still s' any labels I may make.
Hil R. - Nov 18, 2002 9:47:09 am PST #335 of 10001
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l
So any other English word <tried to think of one, fails> with the same s-situation would have the same deal?
Yep. But I don't think there are any other English words with that pattern. At least, no terribly common ones.
erikaj - Nov 18, 2002 9:47:38 am PST #336 of 10001
Always Anti-fascist!
I think I was always taught 's, but then I have spent a fair amount of time with AP Style, so it could be my thinking is muddy. So, from me it would be, say, Pleiades' Wesley fics.
Jesse - Nov 18, 2002 9:48:35 am PST #337 of 10001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.
Ah, but I'd say it's not plural, when it's your name. (Now I have John Malkovich in my head going, "It's my head! ") I mean, unless you contain multitudes. Which is cool too.
Susan W. - Nov 18, 2002 9:50:46 am PST #338 of 10001
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights
I know it annoys me, and that it's something that's shifted since I started writing, because I know damned well that all my things had ---s' written on them. (I think a shift in rule that affects your name is more annoying than any other.)
Huh. And here I thought I was the one being the dinosaur sticking to an oudated version of the rule, much as still I use the serial comma whenever I can get by with it. It just flows better and looks more symmetrical, dammit! Anyway, I learned the 's unless it's Moses or Jesus (or, presumably, Isis) from Strunk & White, and it's only recently I've noticed the s' usage.
P.M. Marc - Nov 18, 2002 10:06:03 am PST #339 of 10001
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear
Ah, but I'd say it's not plural, when it's your name.
Well, it's a bit like being named Castles or Books or Teacups.
Where you aren't, but the name obviously is.
Jesse - Nov 18, 2002 10:08:23 am PST #340 of 10001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.
Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at. I'd use Teacups-the-name as singular.
Jesse - Nov 18, 2002 10:08:43 am PST #341 of 10001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.
Note to self: possibly name child "Teacups."