Noted: Barnes' Guide to Good Grammar

http://forums.insmod.org/index.php?showtopic=10017

Preamble

Due to popular demand I have decided to pander to your requests of a thread dedicated to the improvement of grammar on this forum. With the first release of the mod, the number of ‘n00bs’ on this forum has increased and, with them, the grammar on what used to be a reasonably well read board has suffered.

Nothing upset me more than seeing that god-awful green scribble underneath my text on MS word and pressing F7 for enlightenment as to my grammatical error only to read“Fragment (consider revising)”.

To that end I have taken this ever-so-precious time out of my life not only to satisfy your anglophilic lust for improvement of your tongue but also to restore that little bid of pride and dignity that every old member recollects, back in the days of Op-COIN.

So, I'm seeing off this half bottle of red, whacking on the Bowie and opening my seventies copy of the OED to bring you:

Barnes' Guide to Good Grammar

Chapter I

The possessive apostrophe et al

Possession causes no end of problems in quickly typed English, the most commonly mistaken grammatical tool of which is the possessive apostrophe.

The apostrophe is a poor, abused soul. When it is not being spat incorrectly all over the pages of modern American literature as a means of shortening words for slang then it is being neglected like a puppy on boxing-day in the field of its original purpose: denoting possession. It’s a tricky one at times, I concede, especially with my surname, but we’ll get to that shortly.

For the time being, we’ll look at how you, the reader, not only possess items physically, but also their title.

Example 1) (French quotation marks used in place of standard English style in favour of easier reading)

«Steve-oh’s e-penis is proportional in size to that of three elephants’ trunks»

I have presented you with two forms of possession: singular and plural. Steve-oh is, in body, one man. He owns one e-penis. It is his penis. We take the singular form of ‘Steve-oh’ and, to denote that one Steve-oh owns one e-penis, we put an apostrophe followed immediately by an ‘s’ after his name.

«Steve-oh’s e-penis»

We then come to the unfortunate case of the inferior elephants. There are three elephants. Each owns a trunk. The plural of ‘elephant’ is ‘elephants.’

An apostrophe followed by an 's' NEVER denotes a plural number!

As the trunks belong to these multiple elephants, we place a lonely, possessive apostrophe on the end of the title:

«Elephants’»

Simple enough, isn’t it? There is an exception to this rule, and that is the it’s/its.

Example 2)

«The dog scratched its bollocks»

When using ‘its’ possessively, as above, NEVER use an apostrophe!

Example 3)
«It’s a sad, sad day when these cheeky, bastard n00bs answer back to the moderators»

The apostrophe in this instance simply denotes the shortening of ‘it is’ and that’s damned well the only time you EVER use it.

'Barnes' is a beautiful, if not difficult, name in the English grammatical system. The real bastard is that it ends in an 's' and, as such, is one of the many olde English names which is spelled possessively as «Barnes’» but pronounced «Barnes’s.»

This rule does not generally apply to words ending with ‘s,’ only really with names, but it’s definitely a tricky one to keep an eye on.

Quaint, isn’t it?


Chapter II

'Which' and 'What'

The confusion between 'which' and 'what' is, surprisingly, one of the few maladies in the English language today which did not originate from the slurred and dilatory speech of the United states. In fact, its erroneous use originates in North Riding (having now spread through to West and South Yorkshire and East Riding) where education was particularly poor and peoples' ways were backwards. It has now spread over the peaks, affecting Mancunians' (Mancs') and Liverpudlians' (Scousers') already scratchy, nasal tones.

So, consider this very brief guide the first antibiotic to rid this plague on these forums to avoid suffering the fate of the North of England and the United States.

'What' generally begins an open question on any general subject, not limiting the answer to a pre-determined set of choices:

Example 1):
"What is the meaning of this impudence, Pierre?"

Example 2):
"What in the name of Jehovah are you doing discussing politics in my mess?"

Example 3):
"What does my cellmate mean when he calls me Charlene?"

'Which,' on the other hand, begins a question on a specific subject with pre-determined answers depending solely on circumstance.

Example 4):

"Which spamming, little bastard should I ban today?"

Example 5):
"Which bottle of wine will lead me to my own demise the quickest?

Example 6):
"Which pseudo military posting cock-master will strangely disappear without anyone noticing, today?"
Each question is answered with a pre-determined, limited choice. Example question two could be answered in many ways, for example: 'we dint no any betr lol' [Note to self, ban self] or 'we were directly disobeying the guidelines of the powers that be. We are sorry, sir. It shan't happen again.'
Example four could only be answered by peoples screen names (woglin, wogl1n, deadbe etc.) and question five is restricted to types of wine, in this instance, the cheapest merlot within arm's reach (currently a disgusting Californian effort called Echo Falls which, in an hour's time, will be vinegar.)

Here endeth the lesson.