Correct Grammar

[MsTattersall]

> Trying to pick up on one or two recent comments....
> 
> (1) I always switch the grammar option off on the spellchecker. I 
keep 
> the spellcheck on because I am also a fast typist and tend to 
transpose 
> letters etc. On a different newsgroup somw years ago, I diagnosed a 
new 
> computer-created malady -  TFS (Tangle Finger Syndrome)(!)


I have that, too! Is there a TFS support group?


> (2) I eliminate commas preceding "and", "but" and "which". I was 
> certainly taught the first two. The third procedure, like many of 
the 
> White Knight's, is (probably) "my own invention."
> 
> (3) I was also taught that, if the "base" word ended in "s", you 
merely 
> added a comma. If it didn't, you added "'s". I always think that 
> adding "'s" after another - usually at the end of someone's name, 
e.g. 
> Sirius's, James's - looks incredibly messy.

On (2), the US grammar rule is that "which" is usually always 
preceded by a comma, whereas "that" is not. Lame example:

The cats ate the tuna, which I put out for them.
The cats ate the tuna that I put out for them.

Both sentences say the same thing in a correct manner, but 
the "which" version gives emphasis to the clause following the comma.

On (3), the Chicago Manual of Style, which is the bible of 
punctuation and grammar of the US book editing industry, says that 
only two names that end in S are ever made plural by the addition of 
only an apostrophe:  Jesus'  and  Moses'
(I guess they get special dispensation.)
Everybody else gets apostrophe-S: Sirius's and James's 
(I agree--it looks messy, and if you pronounce all the Ss, the 
sibilance can produce a lot of sssspit. But as it is often said in my 
part of the US, "Them are the rules.")

MsTattersall
A Neditor