Don Wilhelm wrote:
We here in the US have taken many liberties over the years - beginning
with the thing about the Boston Tea event - however, I do believe that
saving a keystroke to modify "Don't" to "Dont" is a simplification that
we can all do without - I just wonder how many apostrophes were
preserved in this correspondence - where do they collect all those
preserved apostrophes?? :-)
The apostrophe is an aberration in the English language, "up with which
I wish I did not have to put." [Apologies to Winston for the liberty of
a misquote]. We use it for so many different things and meanings that
it gets misused often ... or usually. If it can't be said with 26
letters and 10 digits, maybe it doesnt need to be said that way, or
maybe we need a new word. In fact, I have a modest example ...
"apostrification" [n. Am. English, from the Old Fred] 1. The unnecessary
usage of a really small punctuation mark in places where it is not
required; 2. The foundation for formation of irrelevant organizations
whose goal is to preserve a linguistic irrelevancy, not to be confused
with the Second Class Operators Club whose members often ignore it.
73,
Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 2008 Cal QSO Party 4-5 Oct 08
- www.cqp.org
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