Who wants to teach or learn about grammar?

[ChaosTrulyReigns]

I may have seen on here, once or twice, unsolicited grammar lessons.

So I thought it would be naice to have a safe place for grammar help.

If you don't know your arse from your aspostrophe, or your stushe from your subordinate clause, please feel free to ask on here with impunity.

Also, if you can offer guildance on here, please feel free to pop along and gently steer.

I'll start with two questions and one lesson.

If I would like to say "Oh, yes, I went to their house, and had a super time" but wanted to miss out the word house, does their become "their's" or "theirs"?

I'm never sure which is correct in this instance - when at MacDonald's the pub and they ask "What drink do you want?", I'm always sure it should be "Which drink do you want?", but I can't articulate why. Please help.

And my mini lesson. The word "it's" is only ever used to denote missing letters, and not to indicate belonging/possession. So "the cat licked it's arse" is bang wrong.

We probably do with Bof here for her semi-colon masterclass.

Please come and join me for Grammar Fun but don't mention the typos.

Yes.

It is their car. It is theirs.

It is her car. It is hers.

No apostrophe.

Now. What about names that end in "s".

It is Thomas's car - always seems clumsy.

Which adds extra info to a clause, eg. the cars, which are red, go fast

whereas

That is integral to the point, eg. cars that are red go fast.

So, in the 1st case, the redness is incidental, wheras in the 2nd it is a vital part of the info.

To answer yr first qu Chaos, it must be "theirs" because you are not talking about "the house of their" but "the house of them" and their means of them (does that make any sense???).

If you say mine instead of their you'll see what I mean as you would never say I was at mine's, or is it his car? No it's (note not its ) mine (ie not mine's).

Don't understand the CD question.

Must go to bed now. Liking this thread, thanks Chaos.

Nooooo, it's CDs - it's not with an apostrophe. If I wrote it out as compact discs, it definitely wouldn't have an apostrophe! I can't explain properly but my mind will never be changed on this

Loopy, you're on fire tonight. Good explanation. Will see if my pregnancy addled brain can retain it.

It's theirs, no apostrophe. Same as if you say, it's mine, yours, his, hers or ours. It's a possessive pronoun.

OOh yes.

The "husband and I" conumdrum.

1/ My husband and I were talking about geckos. Correct?

2/ They gave the pizza crusts to my husband and I. Correct?

1/ is correct, 2/ is incorrect.

There's probably a more technical way of explaining it, but, if you imagine your husband was away on a glof weekend in Lanzarote, it suddenly becomes clear.

1/ I was talking about geckos. Yup, that's fine.

2/ They gave the pizza crusts to I. Erm, gosh, no, glaringly wrong.

We see why you don't want it to have an apostrophe for possession, but an apostrophe can be used when denoting pluralisation for a word that has been shortened, instead of the full stop.

I don't like it either. It looks wrong, but it can be used.

I was taught "Thomas' car"

In the US, it's CD's so confusion does tend to arise as it is really not a hard and fast rule.

I prefer Thomas's and James's. St James's Park is in London and that must be right, surely?

How do you say it if not? Thomas turn? Just doesn't sound good (tho I do understand it is not incorrect). Most newspapers have one or the other as a matter of style.

See I have a far simplier question. Why is it Grammar and not grammer and what is the difference and why do I care?

I was taught Thomas's but that means nothing, apparently, because I also write Mr. And Mrs. Smith as I was taught and that is démodé, even if not technically wrong.

I saw a bar today called "Legends - 80's music bar"
I thought there shouldn't be an apostrophe in 80s should there? Unless the music 'belongs' to the 80s? Or am I getting confused?

From Wiki:

The traditional style of pluralizing single letters with the addition of ?s (for example, B?s come after A?s) was extended to some of the earliest initialisms, which tended to be written with periods to indicate the omission of letters; some writers still pluralize initialisms in this way. Some style guides continue to require such apostrophes ? perhaps partly to make it clear that the lower case s is only for pluralization and would not appear in the singular form of the word, for some acronyms and abbreviations do include lowercase letters.
However, it has become common among many writers to inflect initialisms as ordinary words, using simple s, without an apostrophe, for the plural. In this case, compact discs becomes CDs. The logic here is that the apostrophe should be restricted to possessives: for example, the CD's label (the label of the compact disc).
Multiple options arise when initialisms are spelled with periods and are pluralized: for example, whether compact discs may become C.D.'s, C.D.s, or CDs. Possessive plurals that also include apostrophes for mere pluralization and periods appear especially complex: for example, the C.D.?s? labels (the labels of the compact discs). This is yet another reason to use apostrophes only for possessives and not for plurals. In some instances, however, an apostrophe may increase clarity: for example, if the final letter of an abbreviation is S, as in SOS's, or when pluralizing an abbreviation that has periods.[35][36] (In The New York Times, the plural possessive of G.I., which the newspaper prints with periods in reference to United States Army soldiers, is G.I.'s, with no apostrophe after the s.)

What are we saying with CD's?

If you mean more than one CD then you need CDs. If you mean the cover belonging to the CD then it's CD's, as in "the CD's cover was broken when I bought it." But in fact you would probably say "The CD cover" is using CD as an adjective....

Never NEVER NEVER "I own lots of CD's". No apostrophe is needed unless you are missing out something or makign it possessive.

I used to work on a newspaper whose style for the abbreviation of the United States was U.S. (when it never used full stops for any other abbrevs eg SOS or CD) because (allegedly) it would otherwise be read as "us".

Not if all in caps tho, surely??? was what I used to think every time I subbed it.

Ah, but CD's is apparently not wrong, Clary... I was shocked and saddened to find this out.

I want it to be wrong, I really do.

The correct or maybe common convention wrt capitals in abbreviations and acronyms btw is that you cap up the whole thing where it is said as a series of letters (BBC, US, LSD etc) but lower-case it if it is said as a word (Aids (you'll hardly ever see AIDS now), Camra, Ucas form, etc)

HTH

tethers are you basing that about CD's on wiki, cause that's not really a reliable source, oder?

You know, I argued for the lack of apostrophe in this very topic last year, and was told in no uncertain terms that CD's was allowed.

Will try and find thread.

It shook me to my very core.

Now I feel frightened again.