LINGUIST List 4.69

Fri 05 Feb 1993

Disc: Greengrocer's Apostrophe

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Directory

1. Johan Van Der Auwera, Re: 4.61 The Greengrocer's apostrophe
2. Henry Rogers, apostrophe
3. , "That's"
4. , Greengrocer's apostrophe as internationalism

Message 1: Re: 4.61 The Greengrocer's apostrophe

The expert on English relative "'that's", specifically also on the history
of this relative is Aimo Seppaenen, University of Goeteborg, English
Department, S-412 98 Goeteborg, Sweden.

1. At Toronto, an early gym was called The Benson Building
(named after Clara Benson). In the mid 70's, a new building was attached
(and named after Warren Stevens).At the entrance to the new Athletic
Centre (the name for the siamesed buildings) the sign reads:

 The Warren Stevens' Building
 The Clara Benson' Building

I suspect that Warren got his apostrophe because of the final s, and
Clara got hers out of a sense of equity.

2. In Canada, the reverse of the continental French fondness for
apostrophes occurs. In French the apostrophe reeks of English cultural
domination and in Quebec is regularly removed from the names of family
businesses: Eaton's --> Eaton.

--

Henry Rogers

rogersepas.utoronto.ca

Department of Linguistics
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario
M5S 1A1 vox: (416)-978-1769
Canada fax: (416)-978-8821

 This contribution approaches the present discussion from a slightly
new angle but it is, I believe,still relevant. I just been to a meeting where
a man of 65+ years who speaks fluent North Yorkshire dialectal English has just
said:
 "Those that's heard the news are angry"
Nothing unusual in the use of 'that' but the immediate following verb agreement
seems a bit strange. I'm convinced it wasn't a slip of the tongue. In
standard NP VP etc, sentences agreement was 'normal'.

 One to mull over.

 Stu.

The orthographical rule "word-final _s_ has to be preceded by an apostrophe" is
not restricted to English or French, I would expect it in every language
where anglicisms are a fad. My favorite example from German is printed
on thousands of cigarette vending machines:
Stet's zu ihren Diensten
Alway's at your disposal
The point here is that "stets" is not an anglicism at all, just the apostrophe.

By the way, could anyone give a hint at literature on the role of language
fads in language change?