Semi colons

[Yellow Fang]

there's a Tapas restaurant up the road from me which opened with a 4 foot high sign above which simply read "Tapa's Bar". No it's not owned by Mr Tapa.

That's particularly wrong because tapas is pronounced 'tap-ass' (isn't it?). It's not like pizzas where it looks like it's pronounced like pizz-az. Is tapas the plural of tapa then?

 

[Bigtwin]

German gets by without them.

...and German is one of the most dog-ugly and soulless languages on the face of the earth.

 

[661-Pete]

I like the fact the Birmingham City Council have begun to abolish the apostrophe in its road signs.

I won't get drawn on the argument as to whether the apostrophe is still useful, but I did a quick check on Google and Streetmap. Amongst the names of villages around my way, that look as if they ought to have an apostrophe (Turners Hill, Scaynes Hill, Sayers Common, Goddards Green, Mannings Heath, etc. etc.), not one of them has an apostrophe as marked on the map. I think this is a trend that has been going for quite some time.

So maybe what Birmingham have done is no innovation.

I have at home a much older OS map of the area, dating from about 1930. When I get a chance I'll have a look at it and see whether it includes the apostrophes or not.

 

[nigelnorris]

Dates back to the 1950s apparently

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...tastrophe-for-citys-street-signs-1520392.html

 

[661-Pete]

Or maybe earlier. I had a look at my 1930s map. I guessed wrong: there are very few apostrophes there, either (except in names of farms). And I'm fairly certain Haywards Heath has never been "Hayward's Heath".

Anyone got a Domesday Book? Or possibly a 19th-century "Bradshaws" ("Bradshaw's")?

 

[Bigtwin]

Or maybe earlier. I had a look at my 1930s map. I guessed wrong: there are very few apostrophes there, either (except in names of farms). And I'm fairly certain Haywards Heath has never been "Hayward's Heath".

Anyone got a Domesday Book? Or possibly a 19th-century "Bradshaws" ("Bradshaw's")?

OS decided not to use them, on the grounds that there was no ambiguity, and it would cut costs a lot. Back then, you had to pay typesetters per item and someone had to proof read the setting. The convention seems to have persisted. Contrast road signs however.

 

[NickM]

It's "beginners' luck". The beginners are plural.

 

[User482]

There's a cafe in Bristol that advertises "Fresh Panini's". Firstly, there should be no apostrophe, and secondly, "panini" is the plural of "panino".

 

[Dan B]

If panini is a plural, surely that should be "fresh panini're". Are what, anyway?

 

[swee'pea99]

I was taught by my pedantic mother that the word 'firstly' is erroneous. Secondly, thirdly and so on are fine - but not firstly. The word is 'first'. I've no idea whether this is valid or in any way justifiable, but it doesn't stop me flinching whenever Jezza uses 'firstly' on UC. Such things are bred in the bone...

As to the original query, I was taught 'what follows a colon delivers what was promised before it'. If you mentally add 'which is to say...' immediately after the colon, you're probably on firm ground. It's about saying the same thing differently, 'coming at it from a different angle'.

It had everything a bike really needs: a frame, two wheels, somewhere to sit and something to steer with.

It had everything a bike really needs: (which is to say) a frame, two wheels, somewhere to sit and something to steer with.

As to semi-colons, they're like commas' big brothers: used to link/divide two bits of a sentence, but specifically (and differently from a comma) bits which are in some way connected/related. Bigtwins's eg earlier in the thread being an excellent example:

Use them sparingly; less is more.

You could use a comma:

Use them sparingly, less is more.

...but because the two thoughts are so closely interelated, it would be, tho' not strictly 'wrong', certainly missing a trick.

But you could not use a colon:

Use them sparingly: less is more.

...because 'less is more' is not 'Use them sparingly' expressed differently; it is a different, tho' connected, thought (an aesthetic assertion, as against an injunction).

As to whether 'any of this matters, so long as we understand what's being said', well, at least in part, that begs the question. A lot of this stuff is precisely to help ensure that we do understand what's being said. All of it came about initially as an attempt to achieve exactly that: to enable us to express ideas and the like in ways that others would be able to understand. And while it's true that many ideas and the like can be expressed clearly with even the most basic punctuation (and, by the same token, vocabulary) the more complex the ideas, the more likely these more subtle 'tools' will prove helpful.

But does it matter whether people put an apostrophe in 'its'? Probably not. And so many do (and there's in truth so little justification for its absence) that it will probably be de rigeur in 50 years' time. So be it. Language changes - and that's all to the good. It shows it's alive!

 

[radger]

There's a cafe in Bristol that advertises "Fresh Panini's". Firstly, there should be no apostrophe, and secondly, "panini" is the plural of "panino".

Every café in Bristol advertises "Paninis", with or without the apostrophe. It irritates me more than it should.

 

[swee'pea99]

Well, you are a chap who wouldn't even put 'café' on a noticeboard without its accent...

 

[swee'pea99]

My old man was delighted once by a sign outside a local garage: 'Punchers repared'.

 

[radger]

I do always put the accent on café. Firefox underlines it in red if I don't; although it also underlines Firefox which seems a little rubbish for an inbuilt spell-checker.

 

[red_tom]

There's a great second hand furniture shop in Hackney. Their sign reads.

Lazy Day's
Furniture Brought and Sold.

I suppose the second part is technically accurate.