Steering wheel wiggles on my Town & Country

Definately.

Your prolly right. (couldn't resist)

Write on!!!! ;)

I think there IS a rule. Apostrophes are for contractions or possessives, and the plural of an acronym is neither of those. Therefore, it shouldn't have an apostrophe.

Not that I really care- I often do the same thing. If I happen to stop and think, I always find myself removing the apostrophe and thinking, "Well, that sure LOOKS wrong, but I'm following the rules."

I try not to be too much of a pedantic pissant when reading usenet posts because a Fundamental Rule of the Internet is that every post criticizing grammar or spelling will itself have a spelling or grammar error. But sheesh, sometimes its hard to resist. People have been screwing up "your and you're" for years, I can almost live with that. But when I see those un-punctuated run-on sentences with no verbs or capital letters (or all-caps), or when I see people write, "I'm going to sale this car," or putting "4 sell" in a subject line, my fear for the future of civilization really goes up. :-/

GRAMMAR

By whom? This is how "low" and "high" German evolved, which were unshakable class identifiers. We have this in the US these days, as well...just go down South or to your local ghetto. Incidentally, "codify" is misused here, as well. Codification means, literally, "making legal by code," as through legislative action. By whose authority did that happen, anyway?

One does have to compliment the French. They DO codify changes to their language through official government action, thus preventing such amorphism of language that is happening at an alarming rate in the USA. I've noticed the trend has worsened since our "Bumbler In Chief" was "selected" in 2000.

"Your" does not express the second person singular declension of the verb, "to be"...period. The miswriting of contractive forms of the verbs "to be" and "to have" will infiltrate a language already overpopulated with homonyms which already lead to clouded meaning and lack of succinct expression in English, one of the most difficult and illogical languages extant.

Other telling common miscues of late: "threw" for through, "breaks" for brakes, "set" for sat, "sell" for sale, along with the omnipresent "your" for you're. All of these are quite common in the South now, where education is traditionally of poor quality.

GRAMMAR. Also, I'm not criticizing grammar; I'm criticizing misuse of homonyms.

...pronounced by the speaker, "tuhhr." Bush's abuses of the American English dialect are the worst of any US president, making Yogi Berra seem statesmanlike in comparison. Favorite "Berraism" on TV of late: "It pays you cash...which is as good as real money!"

Latest polls: Bush will be a pretty lame duck next week. One can only hope his goose will be cooked. He's a "fowl" president, at best. Perhaps he gets his counsel from Big Bird masquerading as Condo Rice?

Ker-POW!

Another common case of poor usage by Americans: "press", as in "...what the press says." Correct usage would be, "...what the press SAY." Press is an inclusive plural in this case. You'll note the English are sticklers on this issue.

Limbaugh...well, he's a deluded buffoon, so not much is expected from him by anyone with an intelligence quotient over room temperature in Fahrenheit. According to what the media are saying today, his attack on Michael J. Fox is blowing up in his face rather nicely. Have some more OxyContin, Flush! Care for a smuggled Viagra with that?

Bush and Carter.

Limbaugh's using 'media' as a collective noun there - possibly to emphasize his feeling that they often act as one in the context of whatever point he's making. As in "The drive-by media is always doing that sort of thing".

Whatever he meant, I disagree. :)

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

My favorite is "That's a hella mod you did to your Civic!"

I guess 'hella' is a contraction of "hell of a"? I wonder if those kids even realize that.

Another one: "That landau roof looks like ass". I have to admit, it does creata a mind picture.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Look up "collective noun". You're one of those people who let your politics sway your comments about otherwise objective things, and it always comes across as fundamental dishonesty.

You could say "The flock is..." or "The flock are..." depending on whether what you're getting ready to say about the flock is a collective action or several different actions (by individuals in the flock. Again

- look up "colective noun".

Now I've got to get the flock out of here.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

I love my Grammar! (She always gives mwe candy.)

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

:) Carter was so long ago I don't recall that...besides I thought he had been forgotten.

Of course...but he's using a plural noun. More apt would be "the company is" versus the "the company are" (as in corporation, not soldiers).

But I'm just too easy.

Wish I'd read this before I responded to the previous. Not sure that there'd ever be more than one flock....mulling.

Now, that's an old one. :)

I wonder why Bob doesn't comment on his own errors in misspelling fastidious and resplendent. Does his errors make him an idiot, too?

Bill Putney wrote:

Some generational slang like that doesn't bother me too much. But generational slang that is just outright rotten grammar does.

That one's too ambiguous... it can mean anything, depending on WHOSE ass it looks like. ;-)

How fun!! (shudder)

You've chosen to have the flock all doing one thing (collectively), therefore singular in that particular case.

It's simple: (1) The flock were running in all directions. (2) The flock was heading over the hill to where the farmer was putting out feed.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

OK - here's one for you: "Some firewalls will block .jpg's and .exe's". Definitely looks wrong this way: "Some firewalls will block .jpgs and .exes". (Let's pretend you can't re-write the sentence as a work-around

- like: "Some firewalls will block JPEG's and executables".) :)

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

My solution is usually to capitalize the acronym and use a lowercase "s". Ergo, "Some firewalls will block JPGs and EXEs."

Still looks silly, but feels better (to me, anyway).

And what the heck does this crap have to do with that ladies town and country? BTW