Jeremy Paxman and the truth of the Apostrophe

[GameMusicCompilation]

The Parents' Association?

[ProtestantsRUs]

The English language evolves, it has been doing so since the first Germanic peoples arrived in England a thousand years ago. The English we speak nowadays will be very different to the English of a hundred years, and possible incomprehensible to the English of 500 years time. And yes, apostrophes will probably fade in redundancy as part of such evolution.

[ajuk1]

"There's not apostrophes in what we're saying." LOL There was two in that sentence, how ironic.

[beastyboy1990]

@ajuk1 I think his point was that you can tell when someone is putting an exclamation mark or a question mark or even a full stop or comma in their speech through their tone of voice. You can't really tell for apostrophes.

[ajuk1]

@beastyboy1990 Well you can with we're and were.

[cristobalito1966]

The English language certainly does have rules, e.g. many ignorant people say "I should OF done it", which is patently incorrect as the conditional perfect tense requires "have" i.e. I should have done it. Possessive: its; Suppression: it´s (it is or it has) hence rules of which there are many. The problem is that many English speakers have no comprehension of their own language.

[JohnPersonage]

The Parents' Association... how hard was that?

and the apostrophe doesn't always denote possession or missing letters.... take "its roof" when referring to a house... no apostrophe... lets face facts... the English language is a hodge podge with hardly any rules and is overly complicated.

[beastyboy1990]

@JohnPersonage The apostrophe always denotes possession or missing letters, its just that not all possession (like the one you gave an example of) needs an apostrophe.

And I think their point was to show the difference between 'The Parent's Association' and 'The Parent's Association'.

[wesmatron]

Paxo wearing his trippiest shirt.

[mandysroyalty]

The apostrophe isn't redundant. It's people being lazy.

[logixish]

This is fucking brilliant

[anniemartirosyan]

Professor is a genius! xxx Love him infinitely!

[stuart12001]

who fucking cares

[grobbledonk]

@stuart12001 - Anyone who isn't thick

[stuart12001]

@grobbledonk- im not thick- ive got a masters in philosophy and a degree in English and philosophy and i dont give a shit about the issue in this video. this was clearly a slow week for news and people that do care obviously have too much time on their hands.

[gaozhi2007]

@stuart12001 Well, that may be your opinion, but the ten guzillion people who bought Eats, Shoots and Leaves and made it a bestseller would beg to differ.

[stuart12001]

@gaozhi2007 yeah ur right this is an important news worthy issue, in fact im going to write to all the newspapers to tell them to print a front page story about it because if 'ten guzillion' people care then its clearly a more pressing issue than...well...ANY other news. in fact im going to set up an awareness group to make sure that everyone hears this message as if only ten guzillion people know about it then theres 5 quantillion people more that need to hear.

[gaozhi2007]

@stuart12001 Judging from your feeble grasp of punctuation, you missed the entire point of the show. Neanderthals like you are exactly why this sort of program exists.

[stuart12001]

@gaozhi2007 newsnight isn't a program about punctuation. You are an idiot

[ubernaffa]

Jesus...The news must have been light that day. Paxman is wasted on the apostrophe.

[grobbledonk]

@ubernaffa - No he isn't. If language becomes eroded then so does the entire society

[ubernaffa]

I agree that language is incredibly important within civilised society, but I don't think the issue being discussed in this video constitutes a threat to it.

[CO2TROL]

It is not redundant in writing, especially in formal writing. If the ambiguity arises during dialogue, there is usually the chance to intervene for a clarification. Formal speeches should be well thought out and devoid of ambiguity. Politicians take heed!

[Hurricane333]

This discussion was as necessary as it was riveting.

[paulhughes1379]

For Parents Association, can it not got before the 's' as Parents is already a plural?

[kakaze]

nah, as he says standard rule for things already ending with s is after. e.g. parents' association, James' bag.

But also as he says its a load of balls

[ShowalterdontlikeME]

Cross your "eyes" and dot your "tees." Who needs an apostrophe?

[eebeebeeb]

like a tie or an appendix

[keepout2225]

uuuuummmmmmm'''

[BennyvilleBlue]

Its David Crystal!!

[muskier]

crystal can't pronounce 'one' - he doesn't know it rhymes with 'fun'.

[toptoffee1]

thisisweird lol,but funny