"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
...
The message
from "BAC" contains these words:


"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
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The message
from "Brian" --- 'flayb' to respond contains
these
words:


I find all abuse of English quite amusing, [and thank whoever
for
spell-check] as there seems to be no way to alter, once an adult.
We
seem
to learn by example, from peers and parents, rather than education.

That depends on the quality of teaching. Grammar teaching was so
forcefully ingrained at my school, I doubt if any pupil of my vintage
misuses apostrophes, texts messages in lower case only, or could
bring
herself to say "Lots of teachers gave Janet and I a Detention".


Whilst at school, we were taught that it was incorrect to put an 's'
after
the 'possessive' apostrophe in the case of plural words ending in 's'.
Hence
we would put, for example, the squirrels' nuts (meaning the nuts put out
for
the squirrels);

correct

not the squirrels's nuts;

agreed

certainly not the squirrel's nuts,
which latter would mean we were asserting the squirrel (singular) was
nuts.

Not necessarily. It could mean that, but it also means " the nuts of
a (single) squirrel".



True. Many thanks.