Good question, though I would lean the other way, just because you have to go by the letters you actually see, and not infer them ( though we pronounce them that way).
― Liz Phair Dinkum (Leee), Friday, 1 March 2013 06:45 (eleven years ago) link
Excel imo
― poll that whitey music pfunkboy (darraghmac), Friday, 1 March 2013 06:50 (eleven years ago) link
Hope he doesn't get filed in the wrong place at the wrong time.
― pplains, Friday, 1 March 2013 14:25 (eleven years ago) link
You should not file music alphabetically imo.
― and that sounds like a gong-concert (La Lechera), Friday, 1 March 2013 14:28 (eleven years ago) link
Yes, file it by tempo instead.
― pplains, Friday, 1 March 2013 14:46 (eleven years ago) link
http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/n601/gamalielratsey/2013-03-09095803_zps2648a64c.jpg
wealth-blessing plz.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 9 March 2013 10:59 (eleven years ago) link
haha
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 9 March 2013 17:23 (eleven years ago) link
Fighting shy of colons-stupid or beyond stupid?
― Aimless, Saturday, 9 March 2013 17:28 (eleven years ago) link
Colons are not just for Sunday.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 9 March 2013 18:07 (eleven years ago) link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22403731What kind of lunatic complains about the phrase 'too much, too young'?
― Hearing moyes confirmedare we hearing m (Nasty, Brutish & Short), Monday, 13 May 2013 10:48 (ten years ago) link
After a childhood avid for the praise generated by my schoolwork's demonstration of correct spelling and punctuation I have slowly turned traitor to the whole notion that minor aberrations in either category are worth paying attention to. I accept them in informal writing without demur, unless they somehow obscure the meaning or introduce an unwanted ambiguity.
I especially condemn those who become hissy over perfectly good split infinitives.
― Aimless, Monday, 13 May 2013 17:37 (ten years ago) link
xp http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4606
― caek, Tuesday, 14 May 2013 00:17 (ten years ago) link
^ I can't open that link, caek
― Hearing moyes confirmedare we hearing m (Nasty, Brutish & Short), Tuesday, 14 May 2013 08:32 (ten years ago) link
try now?
― caek, Tuesday, 14 May 2013 23:36 (ten years ago) link
http://nowealth.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/the-goveites-behind-bad-grammar-awards.html
― caek, Sunday, 26 May 2013 21:38 (ten years ago) link
Ah, so *that* kind of lunatic
― Hearing moyes confirmedare we hearing m (Nasty, Brutish & Short), Sunday, 26 May 2013 23:17 (ten years ago) link
Funny thing about the "bad grammar awards" is that there's actually only one award, so they can't even get the basics right.
― Alba, Saturday, 1 June 2013 09:38 (ten years ago) link
Writing report cards...I think I know the answer to this, but I want to double-check: "Moses's" or "Moses'"? (Has to do with his best piece of art, not his commandments.)
― clemenza, Saturday, 8 June 2013 18:09 (ten years ago) link
The standard construction I was taught would be Moses', but as an adult I find that the visual clue provided by the apostrophe alone is quite easy to miss, so that I've come to prefer the non-standard construction Moses's, due to its superior clarity of meaning.
P.S. There's no reason why one would be pronounced any differently than the other, in that an extra s added to the final s equals the sound: ss.
― Aimless, Saturday, 8 June 2013 18:37 (ten years ago) link
As a teacher writing a report card, I'd say go with the standard construction, so you don't get (unjustly) criticized as illiterate.
― Aimless, Saturday, 8 June 2013 18:39 (ten years ago) link
I can't remember when or where, but at some point I internalized this distinction: if the names ends in an 's,' but you can say it when apostrophized normally, go with the extra 's'. I can say "Moses's" just fine, so I'd rather go with that. (As opposed to "Flanders's," which is very difficult, maybe even impossible to say.) But I know what you mean--also, the person proofreading them will likely have an inflexible view that "Moses'" is correct.
― clemenza, Saturday, 8 June 2013 18:48 (ten years ago) link
"Moses's" actually is standard because "Moses" is not plural
― 1staethyr, Saturday, 8 June 2013 18:48 (ten years ago) link
Speaking of proofreading, "if the name..."
― clemenza, Saturday, 8 June 2013 18:49 (ten years ago) link
Different style guides say different things, so in this case, go with what you think will be the clearest construction.
― Ou sont les Sonneywolferines d'antan? (Leee), Saturday, 8 June 2013 19:06 (ten years ago) link
in AP style you add the extra "s" if the next word doesn't begin with "s."
― A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 8 June 2013 19:14 (ten years ago) link
Thanks, all...The sentence reads "Moses's best piece of work this term...", so I guess AP would have me go with the one 's'. I'm going to go with "Moses's," though, which just feels right to me (hoping I don't get questioned on it, because I can sometimes get my back up over stuff like that).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tciT9bmCMq8
― clemenza, Saturday, 8 June 2013 19:20 (ten years ago) link
cheat, write two sentences so that you can say 'moses' in the first and 'his' in the second. they'll love all the extra attention you will have lavished on their lad.
― j., Saturday, 8 June 2013 19:50 (ten years ago) link
iirc OUP style guide and fowler's says moses' (and jesus', odysseus', etc.) for "classical" names, but 's for modern names.
― caek, Monday, 10 June 2013 23:55 (ten years ago) link
that's a ridiculous rule
― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 11 June 2013 03:07 (ten years ago) link
The way I learned it was that you always put 's on the end, even if you have a name ending in 's'. It's definitely the more logical way to do it, although it's a bit awkward.
― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 11 June 2013 03:08 (ten years ago) link
The Moses in my class is a good guy, but I'm not sure if he's ready yet to share a rule with Jesus and Odysseus.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 11 June 2013 03:15 (ten years ago) link
Perhaps all people with names ending in "s" should just get the spanish possessive -- "Whose ball is this?" "Es de Jesus"
― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 11 June 2013 03:16 (ten years ago) link
if the names ends in an 's,' but you can say it when apostrophized normally, go with the extra 's'.
Along those lines, I've heard that if the sound of the word ends with an S sound, don't put on an extra S. But if the word ends with an S, but doesn't sound like S (Arkansas, Des Moines, debris) all can have an 's.
Which is ridiculous. Our style where I work is no word with S on the end gets an 's.
― pplains, Tuesday, 11 June 2013 04:16 (ten years ago) link
ok i may have been misremembering. fowler's MEU says we wrote things like moses' "formerly" (i.e. before 1913) but it is now (ca. 1913) only retained in verse, which is why i probably associated it with "classical" names.
jesus and moses are basically an unknown first names in the uk. i do enjoy emailing my collaborator in tenerife, and beginning with "dear jesus".
― caek, Tuesday, 11 June 2013 09:33 (ten years ago) link
iirc chicago style gives the same rule, or at least makes it permissible.
― j., Tuesday, 11 June 2013 09:42 (ten years ago) link
last night I saw the Seinfeld where Elaine trips over the possessive of "Onassis"
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 11 June 2013 09:47 (ten years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKlub5vB9z8
― A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 11 June 2013 11:17 (ten years ago) link
Should I use a conjunction or a disjunction when comparing a city to Sodom and Gomorrah?
While:
I’ve never been, but from my near-Puritanical Bostonian perspective, it’s Sodom and Gomorrah.
sounds correct. Sodom and Gomorrah were two separate cities. Therefore, isn’t:
I’ve never been, but from my near-Puritanical Bostonian perspective, it’s Sodom or Gomorrah.
correct?
― Allen (etaeoe), Friday, 21 June 2013 15:46 (ten years ago) link
Second one is correct, but you could get away with the first one. Sodom and Gomorrah are practically just like Winston-Salem or Raleigh-Durham.
― pplains, Friday, 21 June 2013 15:49 (ten years ago) link
I would go with the first one, for the reason pplains states - they are always quoted together.
― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Friday, 21 June 2013 15:51 (ten years ago) link
Awesome. Thank you. :)
― Allen (etaeoe), Friday, 21 June 2013 15:56 (ten years ago) link
This is more of a grammar nerd, but is there a term for those clauses you always see in newspaper writing preceded by commas or en-dashes and starting with "who" or "which" -- "Johnson, who founded CreatiVest with two college friends in his Seattle Loft Apartment"? And also, if it omits the "who" or "which" is it still the same thing? "Skaarsgen, a massage therapist and artisinal donut maker" etc.?
― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Friday, 28 June 2013 14:44 (ten years ago) link
iirc the first kind of clause is a relative clause, while the latter is an appositive
― Brad C., Friday, 28 June 2013 15:02 (ten years ago) link
appositive is only if it's a nonrestrictive clauseif it's a restrictive clause that still omits the rel pronoun, i think it's called a dropped pronoun relative clause? something like that. they perform the same function, but one has a ghost function word/subordinator.
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Friday, 28 June 2013 15:09 (ten years ago) link
"[film] is a spin-off of [other film]" or "[film] is a spin-off from [other film]"?
first one seems correct but horribly clumsy
yeah I know ideally formulate it "[other film] spin-off [film]" but that won't work in this sentence
― lex pretend, Thursday, 15 August 2013 09:25 (ten years ago) link
Of. Something can be "spun off from" but it can only be a spin-off OF.
― Tottenham Heelspur (in orbit), Thursday, 15 August 2013 13:30 (ten years ago) link
Never had this mental image of an All In the Family carousel spinning out of control with Maude and the Jeffersons flying off out of its orbit.
― pplains, Thursday, 15 August 2013 15:46 (ten years ago) link
agree with in orbit
― k3vin k., Thursday, 15 August 2013 16:12 (ten years ago) link
film in "off of" foofaraw
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 15 August 2013 16:13 (ten years ago) link
i went with "spin-off of" in the end yeah
― lex pretend, Thursday, 15 August 2013 16:44 (ten years ago) link