[geeks] Apostrophe usage [was: The Dog's Breakfast]

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Michael Parson <mparson at bl.org>
>Date: 2007/05/07 Mon AM 09:31:53 CDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] Apostrophe usage [was: The Dog's Breakfast]

>On Sun, May 06, 2007 at 07:28:14PM -0400, John Francini wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>> Period. Stop.  End of discussion.  NO EXCEPTIONS.
>> 
>> 
>> Oh, but what about the example sentence on the Purdue web site:
>> 
>> 	p's and q's = a phrase indicating politeness, possibly from "mind your
>> 	pleases and thankyous"?
>> 
>> 	Nita's mother constantly stressed minding one's p's and q's.
>> 
>> Bzzt.  Wrong.  Thanks for playing.
>> 
>> I'd propose this rule:  When showing possessives of single letters, 
>> force the letters to UPPERCASE before adding the "s":
>> 
>> 	"Nita's mother constantly stressed minding one's Ps and Qs."
>> 
>> This eliminates even the *typographical* need for the apostrophe, and 
>> preserves the golden rule.
>
>The biggest problem with your example is that the entire point of
>minding these two letters is the similarity between the lower-case
>versions of the letters.  It's about minding the details, much like
>'crossing your t's and dotting your i's.'

Well, if you want to look at it "that" way, then it also depends on the font 
used as well, as some will exagerate the differences, others will not. I 
think the previous example works fine - you don't need the visual example to 
express the idea in type, IMHO.

Lionel