[Mount Logan]

I've alway's been under the impression that the MLA and APA organization's were the authoritative body's in determining proper language usage and grammar standard's.

[Dogpatch]

It's enough to make a sane person crazy. I don't actually know what's being taught in Washington schools - the grammar expert I consulted a while back is in California. (Maybe that explains why she gave me an answer I didn't like!) My question was: CDs or CD's? The dictionaries I have at hand are all over the place: Webster's= use the damn apostrophe Oxford Concise= either way is okay Oxford Learners= use an apostrophe American Heritage= either way Wish I hadn't consulted the official "expert" - the advice here is way better (and funnier too).

[Eric]

[kiliki]

It depends on your discipline. I'm an historian and we use the Chicago Manual of Style-the MLA guidelines are not considered acceptable. I just looked up the use of apostrophe in plural words and like Oxford, it related a very few instances where it may be appropriate. Dogpatch, are you saying that Webster, or any dictionary, tells you that you can use an apostrophe to denote a plural in every case? Or are you looking up a special situation, like an abbreviated word?

[Eric]

Now I'm confused, are you an historian or a historian? You are right of course that if you are in a specific discipline then you use whatever that standard may be. But for general use I still would say MLA is the best single source for [American] English.

[Dogpatch]

[Allison]

Seems to me that "CD's" has crept in for whatever reason, but I'm going to remain a dinosaur and say CDs for as long as that is ALSO considered acceptable. That apostrophe just doesn't make any sense to me. Are we reaching any consensus on plural's and apostrophe's? I'm getting a general sense here that with a normal, non-abbreviated kind of plural, like "dogs" for example, that we're sticking with the old way of doing things for now until people get consistently too lazy to think about it and then we'll add an apostrophe every time. Same with "its" and it's". Now, onto the next problem: Lose and Loose are not the same word. They are not spelled or pronounced the same way, and they don't mean the same thing either!

[Newt]

21 replies in a touch over 3.5 hrs. Is that a record or are some folks just house bound?

[Brian Curtis]

Apostrophes for plurals should be avoided whenever possible; we buy music on CDs; I was born in the 1960s; children and parents live through the terrible twos. It is always best to avoid unnecessary typographic marks. But this does lead to some inconsistency. Occasionally apostrophes are necessary; do's and don'ts; the eyes have it but the I's don't; the ewes are coming but the you's are staying home.

[Spotly]

[Mtn Dog]

Well said ML! Lose is a verb, Loose is an adjective. My other pet peeve is Affect/Effect: Affect is a verb Effect is almost always a noun (to use this as a verb requires a level of sophistication of which I am not at liberty to describe! ) The rules for apostrophes have always been simple and straightforward, let's not create problems where there aren't any! Except for possessive pronouns of course, that was certainly a devilish little thing to throw into the mix.

[Ewlde Ynglysh]

Should we all be so dramatic, That our language isn't static, But seems to spawn new abberitions With each succeeding generation 'Till it resembles not what we were taught, And we ask ourselves, "what hath Got wrought?" Our noble tongue has been converted In to a jargon so perverted! Aye! The King's English is no longer lord, It's the serf who had the final word So is it best for us to just keep mum Or speak the idiom of the bum Hmmmm.... Why do hikers care one way or the other? Why cuz its our language too! 'Sup Brother? Dude! We are not knowledge fountains i.e. out of molehills making mountains! Like What's at stake is all we've writ So the future can make sense of it! So later-onners 'r gonna miss the boata If our language changes one iota If someone reads this when your dead, They might not know what the bleep you said "Alas poor chap I'd have knew him well if only he'd known how to spell...."

[Allison]

[Slugman]

Lie and lay are examples of words that the average schmoe is clueless about. You lie down to go to sleep, but you lay down your burdens at the end of the day. I read in the Seattle Times today that someone thinks letting casinos have slot machines will cause the number of casinos to literally explode. Why is it that even though English is our native tongue, and we study it incessantly in school, nobody seems to know anything about how to speak it or write it?

[Tazz]