..to be disappointed that there's a grammatical error on the box of an M&S educational toy?

[earthpixie]

"Build the British Isles and all it's famous places"

sigh

By the way, this is the write-up for the product from the M&S website. I've copied and pasted it:

Fun and stimulting, this puzzle will keep them entertained and help develop hand-eye coordination. Build and explore the british isles and it's famous places.

Do you mean it had a mis-spell/typo (stimulting), missing capitalization and a rogue apostrophe?

This is not just illiteracy, this is M&S illiteracy.

I wouldn't buy it on principle !!

My maiden name also ended with an s and I lost count the no. of times the name was given an apostrophe or some even have left the 's' off - as in 1 XXX and a family of XXXs ... it didn't help that my mum is an English teacher and a real stickler for good English !

Yes typos are fine - I'm sure I make loads all the time! Though I am ashamed even if I make a mistake on a text message! Just when "official" stuff is so wrong...

I saw painted on the back of some horrid party-bus thing the other day:

"Oakleys (no apostrophe) party vehicle hire -
Buses, Limo's (here, apparently, one IS required)..."

Obviously a horrible chav company and they probably supplied the incorrect graphics to the vehicle signage poeple, but you would have thought someone there would have spotted it and pointed it out to them?

Is anyone else proof-reading their posts before posting on this thread?

'Girl's Night In. '

The Bridget Jones special?

GrimmaThe Nome

Countrys' going too the dog's

You're not doing a very good job of it then Roxy "I don't mond mere mortals"

I've been known to jump up and down in front of a class of kids and fake-sob in horror that THERE ARE NO APOSTROPHES IN PLURALS!!!!

The kids then usually sheepishly grin and say they just chuck them in every word that ends in s in case it needs one.

I passed a glorious one yesterday while on the bus. A window advertising a signwriting service...
"If you are reading this then it works!
[nameofmytown] Sign's"

I saw a Cadbury's cake described as 'sumptious' on the box last year. Sumptious?!

Roxie - I actually don't mind limo's too much. Limo is a contraction of limousine, so you could say it should be limo', plural limo's. Limos would look like it should be pronounced "limoss", which is a bit odd imo. I am convinced the signwriter struggled long and hard with that one, consulting the finest minds at seats of learning across the country, before committing his trusty brush to the paintwork .

yy limo's is fine. As is TV's

Oops! Well I am supposed to be busy at work with other things so typing quickly (that's my excuse) and it actually only occured to me that I'd better not make any mistakes in my last post...

Plus, I am, in fact, a mere mortal!

AuntieBulgaria - surely 'girl's night in' coudl be correct? the night in belonging to the girl? doesn't have to be girls in the plural having a night in.

I think mistakes like these - girl's and it's happen because they know there should be an ' but don't know if it is before or after the s.

I think it's our duty to go and complain - every one of us, right now. If it's on the website then we can all see it with our own eyes.

(Has to be said though that "British Isles" is a PLURAL so whoever said it should be "their" was correct (there is no country called the British Isles so they can't even hide behind that. The British Isles include all of Ireland. In fact I'm off to look at said product to be a geographic pedant too.)

Do we have the bones of a board game here?

Perhaps "Who moved my apostrophe!"

You must email.

Some time back, I bought a coat from M&S that had a label, "this coat belongs to..."

All well and good. Until I washed the coat and the sticky label fell off, to reveal the original label underneath:

"this coat belongs too"

ROFL that so many people on here can't see what's wrong with it. English is going down the crapper indeed. DP is always saying "I was stood here", "I was stood there". It's standing ffs. He's a fucking university lecturer, the mind boggles.

Things like this used to get my back up big time but I think by now my anger is worn out from over-use. I'm a year 6 teacher and I just cannot for the life of me get the use of apostrophes into the children's heads. In a way I think it would be a good thing to bring back the explicit teaching of grammar (which is basically avoided in primary schools nowadays) as it actually makes life easier IMO. However, what I would worry about is that so few teachers actually have a grasp of basic grammar to begin with so I dread to think what kind of mucked-up knowledge the kids would come out with!

Honesty - to be fair, that's a regional colloquialism (I think), and therefore (IMO) permissible in speech.

WriterofDreams - I was never taught about apostrophe use so would appreciate a mini lesson. All I know is when it is used to show a missing letter, like it's.

Whether 'British Isles' should be single or plural depends whether you consider it a collection of islands or a single archipelago.

Also possession, so for example the hat belonging to the cat = the cat's hat

If there is more than one cat, the apostrophe goes after the s

• the twelve cats' hats were on the mat

Another example of that is:

My son's school (the school of my son Eric)

VS

My sons' school (the school where my 2 sons Eric and Ernie go)