Hi All,

Did anyone get any good pictures of cycling in yesterday's snow? If so, please send them to me and I'll put the best up on the forum.

Please email tandklee at ntlworld dot com

PT

Im surprised noone picked up Pale Riders poor u'se of the apos'trophe there. Still, as Jeremy Hardy recently said, if the Buzzcock's had written "Ever Fallen In Love With Someone (With Whom You Shouldntve Fallen In Love)?", where would we be now?

PP

PS I dont have any photo's from yesterday.

I had thought the punctuation mark was there to signify an abbreviation of 'photographs'. However, I will bow to superior knowledge if I'm incorrect in this supposition.

Tisk, Tisk and Pedant Schmedant,

Mark is quight write. The apostrophe is there to show an abbreviation, such as "can't", "you", "write properly?", rather than the possessive.

Here endeth the lesson.

PT

Hmmmmm...

According to this, you don't use apostrophes to signify abbreviation, only possessives or missing letters, or unusual words. In fact they actually use 'photos' as one of their examples.

But then, I enjoyed reading 'Eats, Shoots & Leaves' by Lynne Truss. According to the Amazon description, Truss "dares to say that, with our system of punctuation patently endangered, it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them for the wonderful and necessary things they are. If there are only pedants left who care, then so be it. "Sticklers unite" is her rallying cry. "You have nothing to lose but your sense of proportion--and arguably you didn't have much of that to begin with." This is a book for people who love punctuation and get upset about it."

Shall I get that coat?

Dom

Dear BBD / PP,

Well that depends upon whether you interpret abbreviation as shortening words or parts of words, which of course the apostrophe can signify.

Here's your coat, and mine too.

TAXI!

PT