[sdiy] OT: grammar, spelling and communication

[Leslie Schwartz]

Well, if we are going to persist on this topic maybe we should create a monthly "Grammar Queen" award for those of us worked up
about it to compete for, and maybe a "Bent Sentence" award for the grammatically worst post of the month.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl [mailto:owner-synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl]On Behalf Of Andrew Wyld
Sent: Friday, May 27, 2005 5:25 PM
To: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
Subject: RE: [sdiy] OT: grammar, spelling and communication

Just to be annoying:

> Apostrophes ARE NOT used when a word is pluralized (showing that there is
more than one of something). For example:
> More than one LED are LEDs.
> More than one CD are CDs.
> More than one transistor are transistors.

The main exception to this is single letters:  "there are three S's in
'sussurated'" is very hard to read without the apostrophe, and other single
letters are allowed it for continuity reasons.  Decades may also have an
apostrophe:  "since the 30's, the Cuyahoga river has caught on fire on three
occasions."  There are a couple of other situations where apostrophes are
permitted, but it does depend on whose style manual you read.  In the case
of years I think it looks better to write "thirties", anyway (like Kurt
Vonnegut's solution to the problem of "ain't I?" vs. "aren't I?" vs. "am'nt
I?" -- namely, "am I not?" -- it sacrifices brevity to elegance).

Conclusion of the foregoing.

Andrew

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