Discussion Forum
This is a forum to discuss the gray areas of the English language for which you would not find answers easily in dictionaries or other reference books.
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Say you had a band, called Eels, or the Eels. Now would you say the Eels’s debut album, or the Eels’ debut album. As Eels is a name, but a plural name, and you aren’t talking about the debut album of several eels. I’m sorry to ask. It’s the one apostrophe trouble I have.
If you are talking about something that belongs to someone, but want to clarify who that person is, where does the apostrophe go? Is it “Bryan, my brother’s, car,” or “Bryan’s, my brother’s, car,” or what? Or can you just not say that?
If there is a family with the last name of Jones, and you want to talk about the family, you say the Joneses. But what if you want to talk about something that belongs to them. Is it “I’m going to the Joneses’ for dinner?” Because that would be pronounced Jonziziz.
When indicating that either one or more than one of something is envisioned, the “(s)” is normally added to the end of the word, such as “team(s)”. When using an apostrophe to indicate the possessive, the location of the apostrophe is placed either before or after the final “s” depending whether the word is meant to be singular or plural, such as “team’s” or “teams’”. Should the apostrophe be placed before or after the “(s)” to indicate the possessive quality of the team(s) ?
Trying this query on Google to no avail, I was asked today whether it’s correct to say “a unit” or “an unit”. The rules of grammar I was taught at school (in England) would suggest the latter; yet the former seems, somehow, more right. Pages on Google use both freely, sometimes using both in the same document. So - which is correct?
Why are the colours flying in the idiom “to do something with flying colours”?
What’s the linguistic term for the words derived from proper names (e.g. Dianaphiles, Blarism, Clintonite, Ophranisation, MacDonaldisation)?
A friend of mine told me that “colored people” is offensive, but “people of color” isn’t. As far as I can see, they mean exactly the same thing. Why is one offensive but not the other?
I have seen this construction of “envy” used before and it seems wrong to me. Examples:
“I also don’t envy you the probable consequences of this.”
“I do not envy David the frustration he’ll experience.”
These seem completely wrong to me, but were written by a very grammatically-correct person. I am therefore confused. Are the above constructions right or wrong? If they are correct, what makes them correct?
When identifying an acronym, I have always simply placed that acronym or abbreviation in parenthesis following the phrase. For example: Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). I have now been told to also place quotation marks inside the acronym, for example (”LAX”), but this does not appear correct to me. Is there a rule for when such use of quotation marks is correct?
