Germans decry influence of English as ‘idiot’s apostrophe’ gets official approval
Germans decry influence of English as ‘idiot’s apostrophe’ gets official approval
www.theguardian.com
Germans decry influence of English as ‘idiot’s apostrophe’ gets official approval
Linguistic body has relaxed rules on use of apostrophe to show possession, not traditionally correct in German
Archived version: https://archive.ph/Ff8GY
Interesting. In English, I'd say the "idiot's apostrophe" is an apostrophe that's used for a non-possessive, non-contraction 's'.
E.g., "The Johnson's are going to the mall to buy pizza's."
Doesn't "idiot's" in this example show possession?
And the "Johnson's" is a plural?
Or do I misunderstand what
you're trying to saysaying?In English, apostrophes are only used for possession and to indicate missing letters (usually vowels), as in contractions.
My example showed apostrophes incorrectly being used for non-possessive plural nouns. I used a proper noun ("Johnson") and a common one ("pizza") to better illustrate my point.