I've been spend a lot of time in the copyediting galley, listening to that tireless drum and manning a sweep, trudging back and forth across the bare and splintered deck.
(The metaphor really does have a lot going for it. Never write, kids. That is the lesson.)
Anyway, I'm pretty bad at using apostrophes. Not terrible, mind you, but I frequently mess up the plural possessive / non-plural-form-that-ends-with-s possessive. And sometimes I accidentally mix up contractions and possessives, even though I know better. And, searching for the correct usage rules, I found:
| "Apostrophes appearing where they ought not to be or missing from where they ought to be are devastating shibboleths in the view of many Standard users, who will penalize the perpetrators mercilessly for them regardless of whether haste, inadvertence, or ignorance caused the outrage against convention. Be warned." |
It made me laugh. I do love the word "shibboleth".
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