On Tue, Mar 28, 2000 at 07:52:50AM -0800, Doug Kaufman wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Mar 2000, Ismael Cordeiro wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 27 Mar 2000, Larry W. Virden wrote:
> >
> > > Unfortunately, the URL's instead of URLs is a bug in many, MANY files in
> > > the lynx distribution.
>
> Although it would be nice to be consistent throughout the code, I
> am not sure why some are saying that "URL's" is incorrect grammar.
> Leaving out the apostrophe seems to be a recent innovation. There
> clearly would be no need for the apostrophe if it were "U.R.L.s",
> but without the periods in the acronym, I believe that "URL's" falls
> within the acceptable "non-possessive 's" rules as described in
> Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Does anyone have a
> citation to say that this is incorrect grammar?
> Doug
> __
> Doug Kaufman
> Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
I've got the book, so I typed in the discussion from it:
FROM:
Fowlers Modern English Usage, 2nd edition (by Fowler and Gowers, and VASTLY
better than the (unfortunately similarly-named) THIRD edition, which is
actually a TOTAL REWRITE by a DIFFERENT person. Due to the uproar, Oxford
U. Press STILL publishes the 2nd!)
, pg 467, item 7 of the article "possessive puzzles":
7. The non-possessive 's. The ordinary purpose of inserting an apostrophe
before a final s is to show that the s is possessive, not plural; it
originally indicated the omission of the e from the possessive inflexion
es. It may occasionally be used before a plural s as a device for avoiding
confusion, but this should not be extended beyond what is necessary for
that purpose. We may reasonably write <dot your i's and cross your t's>,
but there is no need for an apostrophe in <but me no buts> or <one million
whys>, or for the one we sometimes see in such plurals as M.P.s, A.D.C.s,
N.C.O.s, the 1929s, etc. To insert an apostrophe in the plural of an
ordinary noun is a fatuous vulgarism which, according to a correspondent of
The Times [UK], is infecting display writing. <snip of stuff that seems to
me unrelated to the issue at hand.>
David
PS: To my taste, Fowler is still the best, and most intelligent,
and most fun to read, book on usage (and I have lots of them).
