English practice teaches us to use the apostrophe in place of omitted letter like in don't and can't or I'm or to show possession as for eg, John's house.

I notice I sometimes dont bother with this when writing and wonder why we have to. Is it just custom? Do you get upset when people dont do it? Most of us understand what is being said, so why do we need to indicate the 'missing letter'!

Let each child return to it's ( its? ) home. or:
It may not be the most exiting place to be but still it's home.

Riddley Walker got along without it.

Ive been wondering when apostrophes will finally contract their last possessive.

Sounds very interesting. Will probably look for it.

I think that they'll (theyll?) migrate from possessive's to plural's.

I don't suppose that apostrophes are strictly necessary, but yes, I miss them when theyre gone, and it affects my perception of the person who left them out, for the worse. Probably not rational, like most prejudice, but hard to root out.

How have I not heard of Riddley Walker before?

Peter

It's a fun read if you like guessing what words mean. An example: Lets vack our wayt out of here.

I don't suppose that apostrophes are strictly necessary, but yes, I miss them when theyre gone, and it affects my perception of the person who left them out, for the worse. Probably not rational, like most prejudice, but hard to root out.

I concur: raises a certain judgmental attitude toward those
who do not use them.

I like John Richards!
Save the Apostrophe!

Apparently the effort is on Facebook now, too.

Excepting, of course, Candy.

ha this conversation is very good
in my school we can't ask this type of question to teacher.I am looking over it but what my teachers taught me is to use apostrophe in negative words lets c.Different person has different opinion ....

I'm pleas'd to 'ear th't.....Pet'r

I like the charcoal filter in underwear, British soldiers
shouting 'bang' to save on ammunition and Australians
inventing the wheel.

And the nose-picking among teenagers was a runner up,
but as a teacher of the former, could not vote for it
as truly IgNoble as it might be.

Totally, down under everything works differently.

Give us an example sindu. I think then we can help you
better.

WELCOME, KAMO

[quote=Candy

I'm pleas'd to 'ear th't.....Pet'r
[/quote]

M'pl's'r', m'm.

w dn nd n stnkn pstrphs

Looks like vowels are on their way out with the
postrophes. Just so long as we are not throwing the
baby out with the bath water. Ah language changes.

If 'bra' is like 'trouser' as in 'two cups' or 'two legs' to one item of clothing

why do some people put in the (') when making plural?

bras or bra's

That apostrophe stands for the missing ssiere.

ah....gone and almost forgotten.

so should bra be written as bra' then?

And pants and trousers and scissors??

You actually brought it up, well done!

you need to get out more, Luke.

:¬ )

I know I need to get out more, no understatement there,
but it comes from another conversation.

I know, I was just making silly middle-school humor...

I know you were. No offense, whatever.
Candy and I had a PM going and that is where the conversation
was coming from, I am not too good on catching myself
sometimes, and I see where "bringing it up" could spark
humor. I enjoyed it.

Haha!
Talking of missing apostrophes...shouldn't there be one before til?
As in 'til we meet again...
I see it more and more often as till (which I think is wrong...are they talking abour a cashier till?) or as til without the ' before the t...I was taught that 'til was short for until and so the ' replaced the un bit...

shouldn't there be one before til?

Nope. The word till actually predates until, and the un- prefix was added at a later date.

wow I never knew that! But if til has only one l should it have the '? ('til)

As I understand 'til, it is short for until, and the
(*) helps the elide or whatever the missing letters UN
are called. So I'd put the (*).

Sorry once again I posted without seeing there is another
page of comments. Most interesting that til precedes the
until. Learned something new here. What a great site.

Yet I am still unclear - should there be the ' ?

as is my wont, I followed up on jheem's post and found this:
Till and until are generally interchangeable in both writing and speech, though as the first word in a sentence until is usually preferred: Until you get that paper written, don't even think about going to the movies.·Till is actually the older word, with until having been formed by the addition to it of the prefix un-, meaning "up to." In the 18th century the spelling 'till became fashionable, as if till were a shortened form of until. Although 'till is now nonstandard, 'til is sometimes used in this way and is considered acceptable, though it is etymologically incorrect. [EA]

having read that usage note from AHD4, I have no further questions until/till/'til further notice.

oh, BTW, the Old English word for this was til, and the Old English word for the cash drawer was tille. till and till are separate words. then there is till (cultivate) and till (glacial drift).

Ok, that helps. The apostrophe is really unnecessary.

My understanding is that adding just the s would change the pronunciation, the ' is to indicate that you don't change it not to indicate a missing syll'.

and you could always put bra''s. One to indicate the missing ssiere and one to indicate the same sound...

and that was interesting...until/till/'til...I think I will try and not use any of them and save myself from embarrassment!

Till today I didn't realise how much I do use that word.

And maybe TILL, UNTIL and TIL need a whole thread of their own. I have been reading up on all three. Even the dictionaries give conflicting information.

As I understand 'til, it is short for until,

Well, that is how some folks rationalize it, but I see 'til as a mistake or hypercorrection for the standard till. I don't mind if folks use it and I certainly would not proscribe it, I just find it funny.

Confusion reigning supreme here. Zmjezhd: what would
you say is the most correct thing to say, please?
Wait ( ) I fix breakfast.
Wait ( )the mailman comes.
I'll have to stand ( ) the bus comes?

I am just looking for the most correct in sentences like
these samples - with regard to the till conversations we
are having.

what would
you say is the most correct thing to say, please?
Wait ( ) I fix breakfast.
Wait ( ) the mailman comes.
I'll have to stand ( ) the bus comes?

Well, tsuwm pretty much summed it up by citing the AHD4 usage note on until. Until and till are pretty much interchangeable. Probably the choice of one over the other has more to do with prosody (how the sentence scans in the metrical sense of the word) than which one is more correct. If I were editing some MS and I came across 'til though I would get out my red pen and circle it.

>If I were editing some MS and I came across ;til though I would get out my red pen and circle it.

I think jheem means 'til, here.

I think jheem means 'til, here.

That I did; corrected, it has been.

Thanks, I needed to get that clarified, and will watch
what I write from now on.

TIL on the internet is acronym for..... Today I Learned.
How fitting.

TIL TIL

I need a list of all these acronyms, but probably would
not use it, I guess I just believe is saying without all
the abbreviating (well except for OK, and maybe a couple of
others).

There's Internet Acronyms and, for the more mundane, Acronym Finder. I notice the former doesn't have TIL

Hey great, thanks. I have it bookmarked. Just have to
train myself to use it now.

'Train the Teacher' love it.

Haha OK is actually short for oll korrect from a slang splurge in the late 1830s in Boston and New York where they abbrieviated common phrases with deliberate, jocular misspellings, oll korrect - ok, KG (no go) spelt as know go The noun is first attested 1841; the verb 1888, and FUN FACT: Greek immigrants to America, on returning home with USA slang words were known as the okay-boys...

You'd be surprised.

The OK term was discussed on a couple of sites in the last
few weeks. Even the BBC had a side headline about it, if
I remember correctly.