Correct Grammar (Geoff in particular)

[Geoff Bannister]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "sandra87b" <sandra87b at y...> 
wrote:

Geoff:
On reflection, perhaps I do use more commas with "which" than I 
realised though, as I said previously, I still delete them 
after "and" and "but".

Sandra:
> Hello Geoff,
> What a really good answer - I learned a thing or two from reading 
it!
> There's a book called 'Eats, Shoots & Leaves' which is very helpful 
and entertaining, 
> and I would suggest that anyone ought to take a good look through 
it (unless this 
> has already been mentioned).
> 
> Long live the pedants!

Geoff:
Yes, this book got quite a lot of air time on TV programmes.

Another you would probably like is one written by John Humphrys, who 
is a very well-known presenter of TV news programmes.

His book is called
"Lost for Words" and sub-titled "The mangling and manipulating of the 
English language"

It's published in the UK by Hodder & Stoughton, price £14.99 and ISBN 
0 340 83658 X.

In message 26677 Storm wrote:

> LOL this is great. I want to join the TFS support group too!

> What about Annemehr's example of:
> "the students' bags where all in the hall way"

> Or does (horror) the CMS call for:
> "the students's bags where all in the hall way"

Geoff:
Being serious, this question of adding an extra 's is Uk versus US 
usage. In English, the correct version would be accepted as James' 
and Sirius' etc. although many people would add an 's.

In your "students's" example above, that wouldn't happen in UK-speak 
because this only arises with proper nouns. My church has a Boys' 
Club and a Girls' Brigade for example. Although we usually capitalise 
them, they're not technically proper nouns.
 
Geoff (who was tort to speak proper and naicely as a nipper)