HUZZAH! Banned from Rentech.com!
SimsHost:
Quote from: dizzy-two on 2005 August 16, 12:22:40
I think what confuses people is that the 's can be both possessive and a contraction of the word "is."
And, whilst we are peeving, (according to Strunk & White, but not according to mind-bogglingly illiterate New York Times Manual of Style), you should always use the apostrophe when forming the plural of numerals, letters, initializations, and capitalized acroynms.
Wrong: 747s; As, Bs, and Cs
Right: 747's A's, B's, and C's; or even a's, b's, and c's.
So mind your p's and q's and apostrophes, too!
ZephyrZodiac:
That explains a lot of wrongly-used apostrophes, then!
SimsHost:
Quote from: laeshanin on 2005 August 19, 18:07:44
Heh... sorry, but is also my way of saying ta to either gender. :P
Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! You just hit my biggest peeve with illiteracy in The Sims 2. I can almost forgive Maxis for abuse of words like "mooch" and "parquet" and even "lobster thermidor," chalking it up to leading sheltered lives surrounded by bits and bytes; but their abuse of the word "gender" is beyond the pale.
People have sex; words have gender.
Your "gender preference" would refer to whether you like to use, or be addressed by, the masculine or feminine forms of pronouns.
You "sexual preference" would indicate whether you like romantic interactions with males or females.
So you would say "...also my way of saying ta to either sex." That is, of course, unless you talk to words; in which case we have more serious problems to deal with than Maxian illiteracy.
SimsHost:
Quote from: ZephyrZodiac on 2005 August 19, 22:23:13
That explains a lot of wrongly-used apostrophes, then!
Yup! I thought of "747's" because there was a time long ago when the editor of the Boeing News was in a tizzy because we were working on a derivative called the 747S, and she didn't know how to make a plural of it. She showed me a copy of the accursed New York Times Manual of Style.
Suppressing my mirth as best I could, I gritted my teeth and gave her a copy of Strunk & White.
It didn't help. You can lead a horse to water, but it really helps if you're talking to the right end of the horse!
ZephyrZodiac:
So how did you make a plural of 747S? 747Ss?
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