Comments on: Mind Your -ed’s

By: PreciseEdit

PreciseEdit — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 03:53:21 +0000

For what it’s worth, I vote for “Mind your Is.” On the other hand, I have enough trouble minding my Ps and Qs. We have an article in our training manual, entitled “End Apostrophe Abuse,” that addresses this topic. Just today, I saw a sign stating, “Firewood’s selled here.” Ack.

Oh, and please don’t get me started on textbooks!

Back on topic (maybe): I have often seen “suppose to” in place of “supposed to.” I wonder if people make this mistake because they do not pronounce the “-ed” sounds (the “-eds”?) when they say “supposed to.” The connection between speaking and writing is very strong.

By: Maeve

Maeve — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 23:51:58 +0000

Kate, I suppose you mean that I should have written Mind Your -eds instead of Mind Your -ed's. That would probably have been clear because of the hyphen. But what if I'd wanted to write about the letter "i"? What would readers make of Mind Your is? We could save much apostrophe confusion by refusing to use an apostrophe to indicate any kind of plural. Usage like the following, however, is very common in textbooks:

There are too many buts's, and's, will's and shall's in the text. The A's in the book are too big. The 5's and 7's in the book have been printed clearly. ..

Actually your remark comes as I'm struggling with this very thing. I frequently write about words and parts of words so I need a clear way to denote their plurals without confusing the reader. Clearly I can't write Mind Your is, but I could write Mind Your "i"s.

By: Kate

Kate — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:42:57 +0000

Mind Your -ed’s

Mind your apostrophes..

By: Ken Xu

Ken Xu — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 12:05:37 +0000

Ops! ed is my biggest problem in writing!
Thanks for sharing.

By: Andy

Andy — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 05:44:21 +0000

Funny to see a post on this topic now.

Just a few nights ago my mates and I had an argument over the poker table about the correct past tense of the word “fold”

“Folded” seems to be an accepted word in poker jargon but is this a real word? We couldn’t figure it out!