Tag: ABC Wednesday

A is for Apostrophes

I DO use the apostrophe when it would be otherwise confusing, such as with plural letters.

greedy3-330Recently, I was watching this news show on ABC-TV (US) featuring a bunch of talking heads. A feature has a couple of Picks of the Week from each participant, a noteworthy story. That week included Democratic strategist James Carville; the overlay showed JAME’S PICK.

I wanted to scream. The one thing you NEVER do with an apostrophe is break up someone’s name ending in S just before that letter.

One doesn’t visit the JONE’S house, one visits the JONES’ house, or the JONES’S house, depending on your school of thought on this. If you’re unclear, you visit the JONES family and avoid the apostrophe altogether.

I’m convinced that it is the use of the apostrophe that creates the bulk of spelling errors in the United States. There are road signs with ONION’S FOR SALE, when the plural doesn’t need an apostrophe at all.

Here’s an interesting bit from WikiHow:

Know how to use apostrophes for acronyms and years. Say you use an acronym for a noun, like CD. To make CD plural, use “CDs,” not CD’s.” The same logic goes for years — instead of writing “Spandex was popular in the 1980’s,” use “1980s.”

I totally agree, but my spellcheck doesn’t like CDs or 1980s; it prefers CD’s and 1980’s! Oy.

Moreover, I DO use the apostrophe when it would be otherwise confusing, such as with plural letters: “I got 4 A’s and two B’s on my report card.” Sans apostrophe, A’s looks like the word As.

A lot of confusion comes from the recognition of a possessive. There are lots of websites that explain this better than I, such as The Oatmeal and Scribendi.

THE most common error, of course, involves it’s and its, and it’s somewhat understandable. Possessive nouns take an apostrophe: THE GOAT’S FUR; possessive pronouns do not: ITS FUR. The word IT’S is a contraction, meaning IT IS. I see this particular error SO often, even in newspapers and magazines, that I despair of it ever being truly understood.

And I know why, per Henry Hitchings, though disputed by HistoriAnn:

[H]ere’s the rub: say any of these names aloud and you’ll be struck by the fact that the apostrophe works on the eye rather than the ear. Simply put, we don’t hear apostrophes, and this is a significant factor accounting for the inconsistency with which they are used.

You grammar buffs, and I count myself in your number: IS it a lost cause?

ABC Wednesday – Round 16

Z is for the Rosamond Gifford Zoo

The Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse celebrated its centennial in 2014.

zoo_SYRThis is probably the third time I used zoo, but at least it’s a different one.

This past Veterans Day, the family visited the Rosamond Gifford Zoo at Burnet Park in Syracuse, NY. We were in the city for a conference my wife attended, and just before we left town, we followed the most convoluted Mapquest directions to get to this site that provided a great view of the city.

The admission price for the three of us was $20; actually 12.5% less than that with The Wife’s AAA membership. If we had gone NEXT year, I’d be a senior citizen (ack!) and would be charged $5 rather than $8.

As it turns out, the zoo was celebrating its centennial year:

The… Zoo has had a wild adventure of growth and improvement over the last century. Once just a small four-acre facility, the zoo is now home to approximately 700 animals (more than 240 species) spanning 43 acres.

You can read about the animals. As is always the case, there may be a a few animals not available. The small enclosed animals looked fine. I did wonder if the lions would have preferred a larger space, as the tigers, foxes, and elephants had.

I imagine if we lived locally, we might visit a few times a year.

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ABC Wednesday, Round 15

Y is Year 2015

Likewise, this will be the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in 1945.

2015.blocksOf course, no one knows what will happen in the year 2015 except that we’ll celebrate anniversaries of past events.

Back in 1965, fifty years ago, the brilliant music satirist Tom Lehrer, in the introduction to So Long Mom, a song of World War III, said this: “This year we’ve been celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the Civil War and the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of World War I and the twentieth anniversary of the end of World War II. All in all, it’s been a good year for the war buffs.” (With a different intro, LISTEN to So Long Mom.)

This being a half-century later, we just “celebrated” the beginning of World War I. 2015 will be the sesquicentennial of the end of the American Civil War in 1865, with all that entails:

January: The U.S. Congress approves the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, to abolish slavery.
March: Second inauguration ceremonies for President Lincoln in Washington.
April: Gen. Robert E. Lee surrenders his Confederate Army to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at the village of Appomattox Court House in Virginia.
Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary see the play “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater. During the third act of the play, John Wilkes Booth assassinates the President.
June: Juneteeth in Texas.

Likewise, this will be the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in 1945:

January: The Soviets enacts a massive offensive against German foes along the East Front. Russian troops find fewer than 3,000 survivors when they liberate Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp in Poland.
February: U.S. troops invade the Philippines, while British planes bomb the German city of Dresden.
April: US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt dies. Adolf Hitler, in the face of certain defeat, commits suicide.
May: Germany surrenders unconditionally to General Eisenhower at Rheims, France, and to the Soviets in Berlin
June: The Pacific island of Okinawa is captured by the Allies.
August: The Japanese sue for peace after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
September: General MacArthur accepts the formal, unconditional surrender of Japan in a ceremony aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

So what else shall we celebrate this coming year?

April: Josephine Baker’s death (40th anniversary)
May: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s death. (150th anniversary)
June: Signing of the first Magna Carta. (800th anniversary)
June: Battle of Waterloo. (200th anniversary)
June: William Butler Yeats’ 150th birthday.
July: JK Rowling’s 50th birthday
August: Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans and surrounding areas (10th anniversary)
December: Rudyard Kipling’s 150th birthday.

What will YOU be celebrating in 2015?

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ABC Wednesday, Round 15

Fans of doowop: ABC Wednesday, Round 16, is coming!

ABCWed16Seven and a half years ago, the redoubtable Denise Nesbitt from across the pond in England created a meme called ABC Wednesday. People, literally from around the world, post an item – pictures, poems, essays – that in some way describe each letter of the alphabet, in turn. I’ve been participating since the letter K in Round 5, my Keating Five post, which a bit more political than the usual fare.

Denise recruited a team of her followers to do some of the intro writing and visiting, which eventually included me because doing it all was too exhausting. Two and a half years ago- she ceded the role of administrator to me. This means that I assign who reads which posts, making sure somebody is writing the introductions (and writing them myself, when necessary) and inserting the link that allows everyone to participate. The team is pretty good at noting when someone grossly violates the simple rules.

Read about the significance of this round’s logo by Troy, which, of course, mentions the Crests. He’s designed the logos for the last eleven rounds if memory serves.

The Netiquette for the site is this:

1. Post something on your non-commercial blog/webpage having something to do with the letter of the week. Use your imagination. Put a link to ABC Wednesday in your post and/or put up the logo.

2. Come to the ABC Wednesday site and link the SPECIFIC link to the Linky thing. It’ll be available around 4 p.m., Greenwich Mean Time each Tuesday, which is 11 a.m. or noon in the Eastern part of the United States.

3. Try and visit at least 5 other participants… and comment on their posts. The more sites you do visit, the more comments you will probably get.

SamuraiFrog has been participating in the last two rounds. The first time through, he wrote about his feelings, and the last time around, he wrote about amazing, often obscure, facts about the Muppets, which are great, especially the pre-Sesame Street material covering Washington, DC local TV, and long-ago ad campaigns; recommended.

Two rounds back, I did a series of pop and rock band that had family members (Andrews Sisters, Beach Boys, Carpenters, Heart, et al.), but the last time through, I had random topics – 70th birthdays, obscure words, and whatever else came to mind. Arthur@AmeriNZ has participated in the past, and I’m betting Dustbury would be REALLY good at it because he’s such a prolific blogger; no pressure, though, Chaz.

As always, I am looking for a few good people, not only to participate, but to visit other people each week, and/or to write the occasional intro. Here’s a recent example of an intro by me, appropriately R for rambling.

Bloggers, consider giving ABC Wednesday a try, if this sounds interesting. We’ll be starting with A again in a couple of weeks. Write to me a rogerogreen (AT) gmail (DOT) comfor more details.

X is for Xylopolist

Consider this as my Christmas/Hanukkah/Festivus/Kwanzaa present to you!

christmas_tree

A xylopolist is someone who sells wood. Or, from Encyclo: 1. One who sells timber; a timber-merchant. 2. A dealer in wooden objects or one who sells various kinds of wood or wooden objects. I assume this includes someone who sells Christmas trees.

X is always tricky for ABC Wednesday participants. There are two common prefixes in English that start with X that folks have used quite often.

Xylo- refers to wood, while xanth- means yellow in color. Here’s a list of unusual words beginning with X; a number of words start with xeno- (strange, foreign) or xero- (dry).

If you are seeking other words, try plants, specifically these botany entries.

Look also at common Mandarin Chinese words.

Consider this as my Christmas Hanukkah Festivus Kwanzaa present to you!

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ABC Wednesday, Round 15

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