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Grammar problem - that pesky apostrophe!
He was a maths' teacher.
or
He was a maths teacher.
I teetering towards the apostrophe, but something is telling me that because Brit Eng is Maths, and American Eng is Math this is wrong.
Dont' ask me why.
Comments
But I'm certain Jay will know the answer.
Think about what you would do if he was a geography teacher. Or a French teacher.
If ever in doubt, try substituting another word and see what difference it makes.
Or maybe it's like telephone becoming 'phone but now usually written without the apostrophe.
I do agree that without the apostrophe is fine.
[quote=Liz!]Fo'c'stle is not a word in its own right. [/quote] I wonder why not, LIz. Forecastle (which is where fo'c'stle comes from) hasn't been used since Tudor times. The word is in daily use (although not often by people who aren't involved with ships in some way, I admit)
[/quote]
I agree.
Phone is a contraction of telephone, but we dont write phone. It is also now a word in its own right.
There should be not only one but two apostrophes actually .
I know this because when a friend of my uncle once tried to give me some private tuition at his house the police who arrested him did rabbit ears with their index fingers when they said "He told he he was a 'maths' teacher."
Actually, we used to, certainly up until the early 60s. It's the organic growth of language that has turned phone into a standalone word, and not just an abbreviation.
ST, I am very worried about the friend of the uncle. Or the 'friend' of the uncle. Or the 'uncle'. Funny how the entire meaning shifts, just from adding two little 's (that's the plural of ').
Quite, that's the point. It becomes a word on its own by usage and loses its abbreviation.
When I was young if you'd tried to call someone on a mobile you'd have looked very silly with a fluffy bunny or an aeroplane sticking out of your ear.
;)
In Middle English, tomorrow was two words, to morrow, in a sort of directional way. It lost that over time, otherwise "until tomorrow" would be tautologous.
Now see what you've started, Jay!
In that regard, I love this blog: http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/