This morning at breakfast el sr J announced that he was going to edit to a previous post and change "Soriana's" to "Soriana." This led to a discussion of that tricky and much overused "apostrophe s" or 's. Why do we say, for instance, Penny's for J.C. Penny and Kroger's, but Walmart (not Walmart's), Costco, etc. I looked up the logo for McDonald's and the McDonald part is in white, but the apostrophe is in red to sort of blend in the background. That's hedging it. And then I thought about how we say we're going to the doctor's, as in his/her office, but we never say "I'm going to the dentist's." Or do we? And then there is the whole other misuse of the thing: creating plurals by adding 's, as in banana's. And worse: it's instead of its. This is not a problem in Spanish, where there is no apostrophe.
I know there are some grammar fascists socialists (how about that new strike through function. El sr J found that for us) commenting on this blog. What's your take on this issue? 10 puntos for some illumination.
Day 4 on the andador
It was very windy today and we had to come and go in the opposite direction of the wind to avoid getting our faces covered with the cement polvo that their faces were covered with. Is it OK to end a sentence with a preposition? Or start one with a conjunction? Just think of all the grammar rules we learned in grade school, and how they have been modified/abandoned through usage. But the apostrophe remains sacred and its (not it's) misuse a pecado for us.
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