Oh No - It's Apostrophes!

Today, we are going to look at one of the most misunderstood and misused punctuation marks in English – oh yes the apostrophe! I bet there are already some of you filled with terror, but don’t worry we are in this together! When I was in university in my home town of Cardiff, Wales, one of my lecturers remarked on the lack of apostrophes used in the essays handed into him, and the fact that he would start deducting marks if work was not punctuated correctly. A good friend of mine, Becky, decided it was time to start using apostrophes, but was unsure of how to use them. Rather than looking up the information she needed, she decided to randomly add apostrophes throughout her work around words ending with “s”. Needless to say, this approach did not work well and at a following lecture we were advised NOT to use apostrophes if we had no idea when they should be used!  

WARNING – All the images on this post are examples of the INCORRECT use of apostrophes!              

 

Don’t be like Becky; let’s see if we can master these tricky little punctuation marks. Firstly, we use the apostrophe to show when a letter (or letters) have been omitted, usually when two words are spoken as one. Look at the first sentence in this paragraph and notice that I have used the apostrophe twice.

 Don’t = do not, the apostrophe shows where the missing letter should be.

 Let’s = Let us, again the apostrophe shows us there is a letter missing from the place it marks.

There are many more examples of this use including:-

Can’t = can not

Could’ve = could have

Couldn’t = could not

They’re = they are

You’d = you would

Wasn’t = was not

I’m = I am

It’s = it is or it has depending on the sentence.

I’ll = I will

We may also say something like “Oh no my car’s run out of petrol” = my car has run out of petrol.  “Joanna’s coming out tonight” = Joanna is coming out tonight.

So rule number one is that the apostrophe is used to show when words are deliberately shortened, and the apostrophe shows where the missing letter/s should be.

If we are happy with this, let’s move on to their other use. Apostrophes are also used to show possession, that a thing belongs to or relates to something else. Sounds a bit complicated but let’s have a look at some examples to clarify. Rather than saying the party of Jane, we would usually say Jane’s party, we could say the cat’s tail rather than the tail of the cat or talk about yesterday’s rain, instead of the rain of yesterday. As you will probably have noticed all these examples have single nouns – they talk of one person, one cat and one specific day’s weather. So the general rule is with a single noun or personal name you put an apostrophe then an “s” to show possession.

Things tend to get a little more complicated when looking at personal names that end in “s”. If, when spoken you would say the extra “s” then the general rule still applies, you add an apostrophe then “s”. Here are some examples to show what I mean. Thomas’s brother is a little shorter than him.  Dickens’s novels are wonderful. Charles’s hair needs a cut.

However, if when you say the sentence, you would not pronounce the extra “s” then don’t put it in. Simply put the apostrophe after the original s. I know it sounds confusing but hopefully the following example will help. “I was lucky enough to see Jimmy Connors’ best game.”

This also applies when we look at plural nouns that end in “s”. Do not add another “s” just put the apostrophe after the original one. In this way we might talk of “a girls’ school” or that we work in a dogs’ home.

On the other hand, if the plural noun does not end in an “s” then we are back to adding an apostrophe then “s”. To give you an example we would talk of “The children’s father.”

One important rule to remember is that no apostrophe is needed when using the possessive pronouns yours, his, hers, ours, its, theirs and whose. It is suggested that they already assume possession. However all other possessive pronouns do take an apostrophe including one’s, everyone’s, nobody else’s etc.

I hope I have helped to clarify and not just confused you more! Honestly, when you get a handle on using these punctuation marks they really do make a difference. The English author Kingsley Amis (1922-1995), was challenged to come up with a sentence whose meaning depended on a possessive apostrophe. Here is the sentence he supplied:

Those things over there are my husband’s. (Those things over there belong to my husband.)

Those things over there are my husbands’. (Those things over there belong to several husbands of mine.)

Those things over there are my husbands. (I’m married to those men over there.)

Another wrong example! 

You see apostrophes are important!    

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Vocabulary - Ways to Say Beautiful

We all know that the word “beautiful” describes a person who possesses qualities that make it a pleasure to see, hear or think about them. Beautiful can also refer to an inanimate object, something that brings great pleasure in some way, such as a painting or sculpture. Alternatively, we may use it to describe something that has achieved excellence such as “that was a beautiful meal” or “well done, that was a beautiful serve”. So I just was wondering how many other words we can think of that may be used instead of beautiful. Let’s give “beautiful” a rest and look at some interesting alternatives.

Beautiful is a beautiful word, BUT it is overused! How much better to be described as alluring, charming, dazzling, delightful, gorgeous, marvelous, magnificent, stunning, superb or wonderful! To me that just feels as though someone has put more thought into the compliment, it is coming from the heart and sincere. Beautiful also conjures up the idea of physical attraction, although this is not always the case. To repeat one of my grandmother’s favorite sayings, “beauty is what beauty does”, in other words it is what a person does that makes them beautiful, not how they look!

Here's another good compliment for you to try - “bewitching”- meaning to be captivating, enchanting and fascinating. Just imagine how much more exciting it would be to be described in this way. If you are looking for something a bit more sexy, how about “alluring” which suggests attractive, very tempting and seductive. Go on, describe your partner in this way and make their weekend! It is not only people who can be described in this way, you may choose one option over another because it is more alluring, you may find the smell of fresh coffee alluring, or the spray from the sea – the list goes on and on.

Alternatively, if you are describing someone or something that you feel is without beauty you may use the adjective unalluring. You may feel that this is a way of describing a certain action carried out by an individual. You know the sort of thing, like clipping their nose hair in front of you or drinking too much beer so that they can't stand up! These sorts of behaviour may certainly be unalluring. If you are looking for other ways to describe someone or something that is without beauty you could use ugly (but that is a bit obvious). How about trying something different like offensive, disgusting, repulsive or hideous!

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Tongue Twisters for the Weekend

It's the weekend and time for some fun! Today we are going to have a look at some tongue twisters – yay! Tongue twisters are made up of sentences that are deliberately designed to be difficult to say properly, and when repeated four, five or six times they often lead to some hilarious results. It doesn't matter how hard you try, you cannot keep repeating these tricky little monsters without getting yourself in a tangle. Here's a little example of what I'm talking about:

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

Try reading “Peter Piper” out aloud. If you do so very slowly and carefully you may be okay, and manage to articulate each word correctly. Now try repeating it another five times, speaking more quickly each time. So did you do it? I bet there were some interesting results!

In case there are any “smart Alecs” out there who are saying that was too easy, here's another that I guarantee will get you in a muddle:

Betty Botter bought a bit of butter.
The butter Betty Botter bought was a bit bitter
And made her batter bitter.
But a bit of better butter makes a better batter.
So Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter
Making Betty Botter's bitter batter better.

Make sure you say it quickly. How many times did you manage correctly? I only got to two before mixing up my butters, bitters and batters lol!

 Tongue twisters are aptly called as they use words that require you to reposition your tongue between syllables. They then repeat the same words in a different order, causing chaos. They also use similar but distinct sounds to throw you into confusion. Although generally thought of as a bit of fun, they can be very helpful in the development of clear speech and can be an asset to anyone wishing to improve their diction.

 However, be careful because some are designed to give humorous but rude results. If the following tongue twister is repeated often enough you may find yourself saying a four lettered word that you are not used to using!

I am not the pheasant plucker,
I'm the pheasant plucker's mate.
I am only plucking pheasants
'cause the pheasant plucker's late.

Okay I think that is enough of that for one day!

There are many, many more examples of tongue twisters I could give you. However, I want to leave you with one that, according to the American author and columnist William Poundstone, is the most difficult in the English Language.

The seething sea ceaseth and thus the seething sea sufficeth us.

I hope you have some fun repeating these tricky little twisters!

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Arthur Conan Doyle - Sherlock and a Real Mystery

Today, let’s take a look at one of the most popular British authors of all time – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. If anyone out there is thinking that you don’t recognise the name, I guarantee you will know the name of the best loved of all his characters – Sherlock Holmes. I was right wasn’t I? Everyone knows Sherlock Holmes, and has either read the books or watched the TV series or films. However, there is far more to this story than just one character!

Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930) was born in Scotland, to parents of Irish descent. Despite his father’s alcoholism and psychiatric illness, Arthur, with financial help from his uncles, received a good education and attended Edinburgh University from 1886 to 1871. Here he studied medicine, to follow his chosen career as a doctor. Whilst he was studying he began writing short stories and during this time he had both his first work of fiction and of non-fiction published.

Indeed, this is the time when we first met Watson and Sherlock Holmes! Although these were the characters that catapulted him to fame, Arthur Conan Doyle wanted to be seen as a serious writer and is believed to have preferred some of his other writings, including serious historical novels, plays and poems.

As well as writing, Arthur continued with his studies and worked as a ship’s surgeon before opening his own medical practice. Then in 1890 he went to Vienna to study ophthalmology (a science that looks at the anatomy, physiology and diseases of the eye). During this period he also married, became a father and enjoyed a sporting career, playing football, cricket and golf. However, after a serious bout of influenza he decided that trying to combine a medical and writing career was too much and decided to abandon his medical career to concentrate in his writing.

In the story “The Final Problem” published 1893 Arthur had decided to kill off the character of Sherlock Homes and both Holmes and Professor Moriarty plunged to their deaths at the Reichenbach falls. This caused a public outcry, and twenty thousand readers cancelled their subscription to the Strand magazine that printed the stories. However, ten years later he wrote another Holmes story “The Adventure of the Empty House” in which he explained that only Moriarty had fallen but Holmes had decided to allow others to believe he had died to escape his enemies! Holmes later featured in many more stories and novels.

Arthur Conan Doyle continued to lead busy life writing, volunteering as an army doctor in the Boer War (1899 – 1902) and remarrying after the death of his first wife. Both he and his second wife had an interest in spiritualism, possibly strengthened after the death of his eldest son from injuries sustained during the First World War. He also stood twice for Parliament, although he was never elected as an MP, and used his money and influence to fight miscarriages of justice in the British Courts.

However, the bit of his story that I find most interesting is his possible involvement in the Piltdown man hoax of 1912. I have to emphasise “possible” as nothing has been proved! In 1912 bone fragments were presented as the fossilised remains of a previously unknown human. They were said to have been found in a gravel pit in Piltdown, East Sussex, England. It wasn’t until 1953 that it was proved to be a forgery and that the lower jaw of an orang-utan had been deliberately mixed with a modern human skull. Prior to this it was believed by many scientists to be the evolutionary “missing link” between apes and humans. This hoax is unusual for a couple of reasons. Firstly as it deals with the nature of evolution, and also as it was not proved to be a hoax for forty years! So where does our author fit into all this? Well, it has been suggested that Arthur Conan Doyle was the perpetrator of this hoax and that his novel “The Lost World” published 1912 holds many encrypted clues regarding his involvement. Is this true? I have no idea; maybe you need to try and read the evidence and make up your own mind!

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George Orwell: Sci-Fi or Seer?

One of the most influential British authors of the 20^th Century has to be Eric Arthur Blair -better known by his penname “George Orwell”. Blair worked as both a journalist and novelist, and his whole writing career is characterised by one thing, his concern for social justice and the plight of the working class. Blair’s work is generally well known and celebrated but the most famous of his novels include Animal Farm, a particular favourite of mine, and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Born in India in 1903, Blair was educated in Britain before joining the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, where he was stationed from 1922 – 1927. Following this he resigned from the police to concentrate on a writing career. He later drew on his experiences in Burma for his novel Burmese Days (1934) and the essays “A Hanging” (1931) and “Shooting an Elephant” (1936).

Back in Britain Blair began his research into the plight of the working class, regularly visiting areas of extreme poverty; he would dress and behave as a down and out to gain  a true experience of the world that so many inhabited. He also spent some time in Paris where he undertook menial jobs, to gain more experience of the conditions many were forced to live in and of the meagre wages they received. Evidence of this can be seen in his work Down and Out in Paris and London (1933).

Continuing with his writing, Blair also worked as a school teacher and as an assistant in a book store. Then in 1936 he was commissioned to write about the poverty in an economically depressed Northern England. Blair set out on foot and public transport and spent time investigating social conditions. He visited many homes to see how people lived and took detailed notes of housing conditions and wages. The result of this research was The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), a true reflection of the plight of many ordinary, working class people in the inter war years. Late in 1936 Blair travelled to Spain to fight in the civil war. He was true to his beliefs and wanted to fight against fascism, defending democracy, but the political situation there made it impossible for him to stay and he had returned to England by July 1937. His experiences in Spain gave rise to Homage to Catalonia (1938).

During the 2^nd World war, Blair worked for the BBC, and in 1943 became editor of The Tribune a weekly left wing magazine. At this time he was a prolific writer publishing articles, reviews, essays and books!

However, it is after the War, that the most famous of his novels were completed. Animal Farm (1945) tells the story of animals taking over the farm where they are living after driving the drunken, irresponsible farmer out. They adopt seven commandments, the most important being “all animals are equal”, and they are all happy. Gradually, over time, the pigs take over and replace all commandments with the slogan “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”. One tyrant has been replaced by another. According to Blair the book reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and beyond. It is a very clever, well written read, which was well received and ensured Blair financial security.

Later, in 1949, Blair was to publish his last novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. This tells the story of an imaginary totalitarian country which is characterised by omnipresent government control and public mind control. The book made a deep impact and many ideas and phrases from it have now entered popular use. These include “Big Brother is watching you”, “newspeak”, “doublethink” and “thoughtcrime”, to name but a few. Blair was truly before his time!

Following a long period of illness Blair passed away in 1950, at only 46 years old.   

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Insults Without Swearing

I’m sure we are all aware of swear words to use if we ever feel the need to insult someone. Indeed they are used in films and television programmes repeatedly, so much so that they don’t really mean anything anymore. However, did you know that you can insult someone in English perfectly well without resorting to swearing? I don’t know about you, but I think there is something superior about not using swear words, it gives the impression that you are far more in control, and have a better use of vocabulary.

So, let’s have a look at a few examples. You may call someone an airhead, meaning they are a bit silly and empty headed. Similarly, a bimbo describes an attractive young lady who is an airhead, like a Barbie doll! Words like idiot, jerk, twit or muppet can be used to describe someone who does or says stupid or idiotic things. Just as an aside I actually prefer the Irish version of idiot which is “eejit”, somehow more expressive don’t you think?  Calling someone a flake suggests they are unreliable, the type of person who says they will do something but then doesn’t.

Various insults include the word arse. An arse-hole is an unpleasant, obnoxious person, whereas an arse licker or arse kisser says the things another person wants to hear to keep on their good side. An example of this may be a work colleague who can be seen to always agree with the boss, even when in private they express very different opinions! Then we have smart arses, who are always trying to impress and show off how knowledgeable they are on every subject, and tight arses who don’t like spending money, especially on other people! A dickhead tends to refer to a really annoying person. This insult is often accompanied by a hand signal suggesting a penis growing out of the head, indeed the hand signal itself, without any words is deemed an insult in its own right; everyone understands the meaning!

British people also use the names of some animals in an insulting way. You could say “a pig of a man” meaning a man who is selfish, possible putting his own needs before those of his family. A donkey or goose can refer to a silly person, whereas to call someone a chicken is to label them as a coward. A rat is usually used to describe a particularly nasty man, whereas an old cow would be seen as an interfering old woman. A silly mare, would again be used to describe a girl or woman who has acted in a particularly stupid fashion. Indeed, even amongst friends it is not uncommon to hear this insult if it is felt that someone has acted unwisely.

Once started we realize just how many insults we have! You can offend females by calling them “mingers” (unattractive), sluts (slovenly) or slags/slappers (of loose morals). On the other hand, tosser and pillock are fine insults for men whom you believe to be worse than stupid. I will leave you with perhaps the saddest insult of all “Billy no-mates” which refers to a friendless person!

Having mentioned muppet in this article, I could not resist including a clip of The Muppets at their best!

These are only a few of the pejoratives to think about. Maybe you can come up with others? Let us know in the comments box.

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Another Batch of New Words Now in the Dictionary

Did you know that on average there are one thousand new words added to the English online dictionaries each year? Yes one thousand; that is a load of new words every year isn’t it? Well this week we have seen some more added, and I wanted to share some of my favourites with you.

Where to begin? Well what about food baby, yes that made it in. This is used to describe an enlarged stomach caused from eating too much food, which is seen as resembling that of a woman in the early stages of pregnancy. Talking of pregnancy, how about a babymoon, which is used to describe a relaxing holiday taken by parents-to-be before their baby is born, or can also refer to a period of time after the baby arrives when parents can focus on establishing a bond with their new child.

A few words that have been added are abbreviations that have now been accepted as okay to use in informal situations. These include, apols - short for apologies, congrats for congratulations and vom, to vomit or be sick (yuk!).  Other abbreviations include FOMO (fear of missing out), the feeling that an exciting event is taking place and you are not invited. This feeling is often prompted by a status on a social media site. We also have TL;DR (too long; didn’t read), which is often used as a dismissive response to a lengthy online post, and BOYD (bring your own device), the practise of allowing employees to use their own computers, smart phones etc for work purposes. Another one I like is phablet, a mix of phone and tablet used to describe oversized smartphones! If you have one of these smartphones you may take a “selfie”, a photo one has taken of oneself and uploaded to a social media site.

Then we can look at fashion. We now have A/W (Autumn/Winter) and S/S (Spring/Summer) used to describe fashion collections for these seasons. Flatform refers to a flat shoe with a high, thick sole, whilst double denim refers to a definite fashion faux- pas such as wearing a denim shirt over jeans or a denim skirt. I wonder how many of you are geek chic? This describes the appearance and culture associated with computer and technology enthusiasts, which may be seen as stylish and high fashion.

However, I have saved my favourite two new words until the end. The first being omnishambles, meaning a situation that is shambolic from every possible angle, that has been mismanaged and miscalculated. This word first appeared in 2009 and was used by the writers of the BBC’s political satire “The Thick of It”. I think you will all agree that it certainly has a ring to it!

I will leave you with twerking, which is dancing in a sexually provocative way, involving thrusting hip movements. This word has been around for some time in the United States hip hop culture, but its use has now been adopted across the board, and it has won its place in the dictionary!     

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