5 ms·

Love the subtle use of apostrophe in this story title

• dboreham 5y ago
  Aka correct usage.
  • rusk 5y ago
    Yes, which is novel these days.
    • briHass 5y ago
      Maybe I'm missing something, but what is novel about a plural possessive? There are multiple engineers listed in the text, and it tells the stories of all of them.
      • rusk 5y ago
        Oh I’m sorry, as a native English speaker I am familiar with this form since early schooling but as international English becomes ever more utilitarian I am quite used to seeing apostrophes misused or dropped altogether. I think the reason so that now adays most people that engage with the language are non-native speakers who don’t have time for such nuanced syntax. I would expect such a headline as this to be rewritten nowadays to avoid the apostrophe, or just dropped altogether as ever since “Eats Shoots & Leaves” copyeditors have been hyper conscious about the impact dropped punctuation can have on meaning. So it’s just nice to see it here, used as nature intended. In particular that it could be dropped and really not impact the meaning at all!
      • mwcremer 5y ago
        The novelty being that someone knew how to use a plural possessive correctly.
        • rusk 5y ago
          not only that, but they weren't shy about it. Like, in print in 1984 why wouldn't you use punctuation correctly!