Idiot Teen Refusing to Go To School

[ElfPuddle]

That possessive rule always confuses me.  It parses as "Dog is Bollocks".
Is "Dogs' Bollocks" OK if there is more that one dog though?

All you idiot teens that aren't attending school, stick around...

*ElfPuddle pulls her librarian glasses to the tip of her nose and looks over the edge*
The possesive s rule is:
With most singular nouns, add an apostrophe and s to form the possessive. (This is ElfPuddle's book. That is George's desk.)
When forming a contraction with is or was, take out most of the verb, push the s close to the previous word, and use the apostrophe to substitute for all the missing letters. (This is fun. This's fun. Dog is Bollocks. Dog's Bollocks)
The possessive rule gets futsy when dealing with words that end in s or es, whether plural or singular. (Have you read Confucius' teachings?)
The biggest issue with possesive 's is with it. The book belongs to it...its book...no apostrophe. There's always an exception to the rule. For more information, visit your local High School.
*removes glasses and puts away teacher's key*
You may now continue with your usual lives. :)or lack thereof

Edited to fix poor typing....I can't answer student questions and type at the same time.

[Sandilou]

Easy wasy to remember...

The apostrophe in it's ALWAYS replaces  the i in is so it is never, ever possessive.  It when it's possessive is its.
So when proof reading your writing, read it's as 'it is' and if it doesn't make sense, then you've used the wrong spelling. Use its instead.

[baratron]

I used to hang out on the newsgroup alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe, and that's what I chant whenever anyone asks me for advice.

Altogether now - YUCK YUCK YUCK.  Oh, I do so LOVE this quote.  Let's all ADD THE YOO.  Wanna learn more about the YOO?  Go here: http://www.wittywoman.com/yoos.html

Sorry, have to advertise my wares now and again.  Take another set of lips.  The YOO is worth it. 

Did you write that article? It's hilarious!

[Paperbladder]

Downloading the Inteenimator kills kittens?  Oh well.

It's jase's fault that people kept bugging him about the inteenimator, people online are lazy and never want to read anything.  Heck, there's people that don't even capitalize their sentences.  It would have been smarter for him to just make a bunch of hacks like J.M. has done which each has a unique feature that doesn't depend on another.  Probably easier said than done though, since most functions of that thing rely on the WooHoo portion.

I used to use the thing, but then decided that I never even used much of the functions that are unique to it.  If I decide I want those features later, I might reconsider downloading the thing.  The fact that it conflicts with part of Pescado's Clothing Tool and the fact that it won't be updated make me wary of downloading the thing.

[Hegelian]

When forming a contraction with is or was, take out most of the verb, push the s close to the previous word, and use the apostrophe to substitute for all the missing letters. (This is fun. This's fun. Dog is Bollocks. Dog's Bollocks)

This is an interesting example, because out of context there's no way to know whether Dog's Bollocks means bollocks belonging a dog, or that the dog is bollocks. I've never seen this is contracted to this's—surely this is bad form if not literally bad grammar (or more correctly, poor grammar)?

The possessive rule gets futsy when dealing with words that end in s or es, whether plural or singular. (Have you read Confucius' teachings?)

For simplicity, I use the style recommended by The Chicago Manual of Style ([perhaps the foremost authority on American English usage, the MLA not withstanding):  's after s in the singular. Examples:  "That is Charles's car." "I read Anne Stokes's book." If there were more than one Charles involved, the correct form would be "That is the Charles' car"—this is the way you know whether there is one Charles (Charles's) or more than one (Charles').

 

[ElfPuddle]

This is an interesting example, because out of context there's no way to know whether Dog's Bollocks means bollocks belonging a dog, or that the dog is bollocks. I've never seen this is contracted to this's—surely this is bad form if not literally bad grammar (or more correctly, poor grammar)?

For simplicity, I use the style recommended by The Chicago Manual of Style ([perhaps the foremost authority on American English usage, the MLA not withstanding):  's after s in the singular. Examples:  "That is Charles's car." "I read Anne Stokes's book." If there were more than one Charles involved, the correct form would be "That is the Charles' car"—this is the way you know whether there is one Charles (Charles's) or more than one (Charles').

In general, I would never use "this's fun". Having said that, however, I believe it's technically correct. I've never seen a rule to the contrary at any rate. It just sounds plain wrong unless you've been reading a lot of Shakespeare recently. I have, so....
...as for 's after s...
The textbooks I use in class (which are copyright 2004 and tend towards MLA), use the rule I gave. I've seen rule/guidebooks contradict each other. I'm starting to believe that, like many other punctuation rules, the possesive s after a singular s rule (my Confucius, your Charles) used to be one way and is currently changing to another for the stupidity of many writers simplicity of use. The fewer rules, and the fewer exceptions to the rules, the better. Or some such. All I know for certain is that one of my collegues will throw you through a window if you attempt to put an apostrophe s after her last name (yes, it ends in s).

[maxon]

No no no no, no.
When will people get this?
It's the "Dogs Bollocks", or the "Cats Whiskers".
Not the Kittens Bollocks.

I didn't say dog's I said complete.

[tunaisafish]

I didn't say dog's I said complete.

maxon, you wrote complete bollocks.
We all saw you do it.  Don't try to wriggle out of it now 

[Hegelian]

The textbooks I use in class (which are copyright 2004 and tend towards MLA), use the rule I gave. I've seen rule/guidebooks contradict each other. I'm starting to believe that, like many other punctuation rules, the possesive s after a singular s rule (my Confucius, your Charles) used to be one way and is currently changing to another for the stupidity of many writers simplicity of use.

The Chicago Manual certainly leans toward the more traditional, which one could interpret as "more correct." The MLA tends to cater to the lazy writer, as for example in its endorsement of inline citations rather than real footnotes in order to get writers (particularly in Lit) to use citations at all. Although it is true that languages are evolutionary, it is also true that simply disregarding the rules of grammar isn't just a slap at musty conformity, it's also an assault on meaning and understanding. That many language rules exist largely for aesthetic reasons is undeniable (and we are all better off for it), but they also serve to maintain a common understanding of the words that make up a language and the ways in which they are used. And of course a side-effect of semi-literacy is that incoherent speech (and writing) is frequently an indicator of incoherent/incompetent thinking. 

[Ellatrue]

That inline thing irritates me. I grew up in chicago and moved to VA when I was 15- so I learned to use footnotes and such, but after the move, I was always told to use MLA format. I hate the way the in-text citations break up the flow of things.

[jase]

The fact that it conflicts with part of Pescado's Clothing Tool...

It conflicts with the optional package (I forget which one specifically) that affects how university sims are dressed when they return home or something.  It should not conflict with the main package mod, however.

Everytime somebody installs the Inteenimator, God kills a kitten. How does it feel to know you just caused the death of an innocent kitten, you murderer?

Think of the poor kittens!

Sure alot cheaper than spaying and neutering.

[diamonde]

Everytime somebody installs the Inteenimator, God kills a kitten.

Good to know I can do something about our feral cat problem beyond just neutering my own cat.  *uninstalls and reinstalls inteen a few times*

[ElfPuddle]

The Chicago Manual certainly leans toward the more traditional, which one could interpret as "more correct." The MLA tends to cater to the lazy writer, as for example in its endorsement of inline citations rather than real footnotes in order to get writers (particularly in Lit) to use citations at all. Although it is true that languages are evolutionary, it is also true that simply disregarding the rules of grammar isn't just a slap at musty conformity, it's also an assault on meaning and understanding. That many language rules exist largely for aesthetic reasons is undeniable (and we are all better off for it), but they also serve to maintain a common understanding of the words that make up a language and the ways in which they are used. And of course a side-effect of semi-literacy is that incoherent speech (and writing) is frequently an indicator of incoherent/incompetent thinking. 

I'm split exactly in half ...
Half of me (Elf) agrees with you completely. Parenthetical citations were certainly easier, even for the deepest thinkers, when we were still using typewriters. Footnotes then were, in my humble opinion, a creation of the devil. Now that "typing" has been replaced by "keyboarding", however, footnotes are just as easy as the proverbial pie. As parenthetical citations do disrupt reading, I wish we'd all return to footnotes.
Semi-literacy as incoherent thinking? Absolutely! I don't believe you can claim to understand a work unless you understand the nuances, allusions, and all the rest that comes with real literacy and deep thinking.
The other half (Puddle) thinks the other way. Certainly we have to keep part of our language stable to maintain understanding. What's the point of communication otherwise? But semi-literacy is better than a-literacy and il-literacy, both of which I am constantly battling in my students.
For the sakes of those that have neither the desire nor the ability to attend college, let alone spend evenings reading government reports, Shakespeare, or anything at all, I say, "Hell yes! Make it simple!" If it's simple, they'll do it, and isn't that the point?

*ElfPuddle briefly battles with self over which half is correct.*

Nope, I don't have an answer. Maybe we just compromise...Those of us who know what's right should continue our standards and scream at those who can't tell the difference between there, their, and they're, or at those who say "I seen that." But as long as they remember to cite their sources IN SOME MANNER, we let them live.

[diamonde]

Now that "typing" has been replaced by "keyboarding", however, footnotes are just as easy as the proverbial pie. As parenthetical citations do disrupt reading, I wish we'd all return to footnotes.

I actually prefer having the abbreviated reference right there in the text, at least for scientific works.  If it says something like "early studies seemed to indicate these effects were caused entirely by the gamma radiation (Jones, Begonia and Brown, 1995), but later experiments with heat stress caused similar phenotypes to occur in the second generation (Jones and Begonia, 1997)" then I can actually get a lot from the references themselves.  That it seems to be the same research group, and the time scale they're talking about.  Footnotes just mean I'd have to stop sometimes two or three times per sentence and try to find who/when they're talking about.  I guess it's just practice but I don't find the parenthetical references at all jarring anymore, the sentence still flows in my head and the reference turns into a kind of associated tag. But a "studies indicate" kind of statement where I have to go hunting for the details is going to frustrate me and make me mistrust the source.

When I was a doing an undergrad research assignment one guy's name kept appearing at least once in every article on the subject after 1994, even though a lot of the references were minor.  Even when I was skimming over stuff (so I wouldn't have bothered with footnotes or full references), I kept seeing his name somewhere.  It would have taken me a lot longer to realise how important his work was with less obvious indicators that he was The Man, since his papers were originally published in Portugese and didn't show up in my searches.  (I also learned that one semester of Spanish did not really improve my ability to read Portugese by any significant amount, but that was a whole different problem.)  I like that after just browsing in an area for a while you start to recognise the big names and when it was all going on just from the references in the text.

Yes, I am an enormous dork.

[maxon]

I didn't say dog's I said complete.

maxon, you wrote complete bollocks.
We all saw you do it.  Don't try to wriggle out of it now 

My dog doesn't have complete bollocks - what are you saying?

[tunaisafish]

Touché Maxon  You win, I give up.

I'm following this thread as these literary heavyweights are learning me to write properly.

Mistakes like that annoy me even more than the whole "your, you're, their, there, they're".
"Friends, Romans, Countrymen, borrow me your ears."

[maxon]

Touché Maxon  You win, I give up.

Coward

I'm following this thread as these literary heavyweights are learning me to write properly.

Mistakes like that annoy me even more than the whole "your, you're, their, there, they're".
"Friends, Romans, Countrymen, borrow me your ears."

Sit up straight and pay attention then.  Personally, I use literary heavyweights to prop open the door but then I'm a Philistine (an unrefined, rude person: barbarian, boor, chuff, churl, vulgarian, yahoo - ah, Roget is your friend.  I've always wondered why Yahoo chose that name.  Um, I seem to have wandered off topic.  I'm going to talk to the dog about a man).

[Sagana]

Parenthetical references are fine as long as it's just a reference. A full-fledged explanatory footnote (usually the most interesting part, as it's likely to be an idea not well-enough proved to be in the actual text) imo opinion belong at the bottom of the page (and none of it should be endnotes or chapter notes :p)

So many of our rules come from archaic processes or whatnot. A period or comma belongs (originally at least - it's been changing) inside of the parentheses to keep the little type from falling off when typesetting :p Written or spoken, language is about communication. If a spelling difference or error or grammatical mistake confuses or obscures, it's wrong. If it doesn't <shrug> no biggie and no sense fussing over it. Sometimes it adds flavour or color even. Responsibility for reading comprehension and writing to the audience divides equally between audience (to try and understand) and author (to attempt to express in terms the intended audience can understand).

[Hegelian]

The other half (Puddle) thinks the other way. Certainly we have to keep part of our language stable to maintain understanding. What's the point of communication otherwise? But semi-literacy is better than a-literacy and il-literacy, both of which I am constantly battling in my students.

My use of semi-literacy was meant to include these as well. For me, being able to write your name and read the sports page, and nothing else, is essentially illiteracy even if it isn't technically so.

For the sakes of those that have neither the desire nor the ability to attend college, let alone spend evenings reading government reports, Shakespeare, or anything at all, I say, "Hell yes! Make it simple!" If it's simple, they'll do it, and isn't that the point?

Make it simple, easy, unchallenging, stupid, empty:  the mantra of our modern culture. If it takes any effort at all, it can't be worth the bother.

Now that "typing" has been replaced by "keyboarding", however, footnotes are just as easy as the proverbial pie. As parenthetical citations do disrupt reading, I wish we'd all return to footnotes.

I actually prefer having the abbreviated reference right there in the text, at least for scientific works.  If it says something like "early studies seemed to indicate these effects were caused entirely by the gamma radiation (Jones, Begonia and Brown, 1995), but later experiments with heat stress caused similar phenotypes to occur in the second generation (Jones and Begonia, 1997)" then I can actually get a lot from the references themselves.

Scientific and technical writing are of course special cases. As you implicitly suggest, specialists in a technical field are likely to be familiar with a certain body of work which may not need a full citation, or a particular paper may rely on only a few sources. But as sagana notes, in non-scientific writing, footnotes often contain a lot more than just a reference, and remain the first choice. Endnotes are convenient for publishers and remain a less-than-satisfactory second choice, and inline citations remain the refuge of the intellectually (and writerly) lazy.

Written or spoken, language is about communication. If a spelling difference or error or grammatical mistake confuses or obscures, it's wrong. If it doesn't <shrug> no biggie and no sense fussing over it. Sometimes it adds flavour or color even. Responsibility for reading comprehension and writing to the audience divides equally between audience (to try and understand) and author (to attempt to express in terms the intended audience can understand).

I have to disagree with you here. Unintentional errors in writing not intended to be private are careless and sloppy—in published work they are inexcusable. It's not just a matter of writing aesthetics or correctness—our entire culture has been travelling the road of careless and sloppy for some time now, in art and entertainment, education, the political process, manufacturing, customer service, personal relationships—you name it. We've raised a couple generations now that can't be bothered to put any effort into anything involving mental work (not really the word I want  ). Furthermore (and setting aside for the moment arguments about intention and the indeterminacy of meaning), it is the writer's responsiblity to express herself in a way that is comprehensible to her intended audience—whether or not the reader ultimately understands what is written or grasps its intent, he shouldn't need to decipher or guess at the meaning of what is written because of sloppy or incompetent writing. In the end, writing is a craft like cabinetry or weaving, and it is incumbent upon writers to become at least competent at the craft even if they don't master it.

Also, language isn't just about communication—it's also about expression and beauty. English is a wonderful language, highly flexible, capable of great subtlety and nuance, and in the hands of someone who has mastered the craft, of great beauty. Although French gets top marks for the aesthetics of its sound, more can be done with English, being composed as it is of words from several languages and without being hamstrung by the gender articles of most other European languages and the more strict grammar rules of many (German in particular). English has many more individual words (more than twice as many as German, even if you exclude technical and "invention" words like television), and the flexibility of its grammar allows us to rearrange the word order in a sentence in several ways to achieve specific aesthetic or emotional effects without either changing the meaning or being ungrammatical. This flexibility along with the "aural" characteristics of many English words allows for a rhythmic use of the language that seems to me rather unique, making possible the stunningly affective language of Shakespeare, for example, or the lyrics in rock songs.

"Simple," "careless," and "sloppy" all undermine significantly these aspects of the language which make it such a wonderful tool. (BTW, it occurs to me that "Simple and Sloppy" should be the slogan for television news.)

[ElfPuddle]

Your points are entirely valid, Hegelian. I do take exception to the idea that my generation isn't up to the same mental capabilities as those that have gone before us.   I'm unable to prove anything to the contrary at the moment, but please allow that Gen X isn't the first to cry "Give me simplicity or give me death!". For instance, take a look at our less-than brilliant president who's worried about cloning adventures in human-animal hybrids.     (Which is another story altogether. Sheesh.)

My hope is that by letting my students take the simple way out of the "tough stuff", they will see that they can write something more challenging than internetese or three-word sentences and read something more challenging than the sports page. Many of their previous teachers have allowed them to get away with nothing harder than multiple choice worksheets. Not even cummulative exams, for Heaven's sake! By starting them with more difficult work, if not as challenging as one would hope, I can wean them towards what high school students should be capable of. If I continue to raise the bar year after year, they may just get somewhere. Baby steps. Baby steps.

I cannot speak for school systems across the board, of course, but due to NCL-B (No Child Left Behind), most American schools are suffering from two oppositional and equally powerful forces: RAISE TEST SCORES and GRADUATE THEM ALL, ESPECIALLY WITH HONORS. We cannot do both, and yet we are mandated to do so. It is statistically impossible to have more than 50% of students doing better than 50% on standardized tests. (You can't have six out of ten students beating six out of the same ten). That's what NCL-B requires us to do in the next few years. NCL-B also demands that we lower our drop-out rates to nearly zero in the same amount of time. If anyone of you can tell me how to make our classes more challenging, keep the less-able students in school, and make every student (including those with mental retardation and lesser learning disabilities) perform better than at least 50% of her/his peers, please tell me.

Yes, it's true that we need to work on standards, make sure that teachers are qualified to teach, etc. I just don't know that requiring my students to be as good a reader/writer as the standard English major is the way out. My students do leave high school knowing how to, at the very least, start well and get help when needed. No, it isn't an ideal system, but I cannot do everything. I wish I could.

[Rose Outlaw]

Everytime somebody installs the Inteenimator, God kills a kitten. How does it feel to know you just caused the death of an innocent kitten, you murderer?

Think of the poor kittens!

Let's get from the grammar to maths ... I installed Inteenimator once and four cats in the family passed away long before their time.
So I've got three more tries... 

You had a problem with a teenager, and it never occured to you that InTeen might have something to do with it? 

Actually not, since I played for ages with InTeen installled, but without the occurrence of that or similiar problems.

[Sagana]

I'm going to attempt the impossible for me - brevity. As this is a fun conversation but feels more and more out of place here, especially if I copy-paste in entire articles as I'm soooo tempted to do (but won't).

I have to disagree with you here. Unintentional errors in writing not intended to be private are careless and sloppy—in published work they are inexcusable.

Oh I agree that "errors" in published non-fiction are Poor Form<tm> (noting the rules change and the piece might need to be grandfathered, and spelling is different in different parts of the world, oh and problems that are the proofreader's and typist's rather than the author if those are different, etc.) Fiction has its own rules. But I think (unless things have changed dramatically in the last few years) most published works of non-fiction meet fairly rigorous standards (peer-reviews or whatever else). It's general complaints about how people say things on the net - chat boards, blogs, etc. that bug me.

And the reader still has an obligation to *try* to understand. Many people are lazy writers, many are lazy readers as well.... one can imagine a young student thinking "that should have been spelled "there" and it's "their" - obviously they're dumb and I don't need to work my head around this." Any excuse not to try ;) Speed readers anonymous.

Also, language isn't just about communication—it's also about expression and beauty.

About *communicating* expression and beauty. Shared. Not just language, but any of the arts, are about communicating. Seeing something in a certain way and showing that to other people. If it's only meant to be seen by you and no one else (like a diary) that's different, but very rare. If the grammar rules are interferring with the communication, the rules are wrong.

Although French gets top marks for the aesthetics of its sound, more can be done with English, being composed as it is of words from several languages and without being hamstrung by the gender articles of most other European languages and the more strict grammar rules of many (German in particular).

And the ability to do more in English, which is a Germanic language, is directly related to English speakers calling for simplification - changing the rules to something that allows more flexibility and doesn't require hamstringing gender articles. When first spoken and written that way, the speakers were "wrong" grammatically. Rather than undermining the beauty, simplifying the language *allows* the part you're celebrating.

English has many more individual words (more than twice as many as German, even if you exclude technical and "invention" words like television)

There's several studies that theorize an upper limit to human vocabulary. It seems that above a certain number, if more words are added to the language (think of all the words the computer age has added in recent years) then other words quickly become archaic or drop out of the popular lexicon. A human "working" vocabulary has an upper bound. It's interesting, in that while the dictionary has this large number, chances are the general population (the studies are of groups, not individuals) will only be able to use so many. If I can find a link, I'll post it (I have a strong hobbyist interest in linguistics, primarily Indo-European, so I read a lot of things of this nature, and don't know where I read it.)

I do take exception to the idea that my generation isn't up to the same mental capabilities as those that have gone before us.

Not posting whole blog articles, really not... only this piece, highly edited:

Item: "Our standard for high school graduation has slipped badly. Fifty years ago a high-school diploma meant something. . . . " — Historian Arthur Bestor

Item: The New York Times gave a social studies test to seven thousand college freshmen nationwide. Only 29 percent knew that St. Louis was located on the Mississippi..."

Item: The National Association of Manufacturers reports that 40 percent of high school graduates could not perform simple arithmetic or accurately express themselves in English.

Item: Harvard's Board of Overseers, shocked at entering students' preparation, published samples of freshman writing to demonstrate how badly high schools prepared students. ...

Oh, I forgot to give the dates for these news items. They come from (in order) 1958, 1943, 1927 and 1896, and are quoted in the book The Way We Were?

For those who, like me, are interested in this kind of thing, the blog article (well worth a read) is here:

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/

Scroll down to "Students Getting Dumber: The Sky Has Always Been Falling"

And Chapter 1 of the book _The Way We Were_ is here:

http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/waywewere-chpt1.htm

<argh, my idea of brief - but I bothered to type it in so I guess I'll post it and then go play sims> ;)

[Renatus]

Well, I enjoyed reading it, Sagana. If you find that link or any other about linguistics I know I'd be happy for them. Since I started studying Finnish my interest in linguistics has been renewed.