Calling All Greengrocers!!

[simonineaston]

Having read this post you, dear reader, will fall into one of two camps. You will either march purposely towards the head-quarters of the camp called Don't Care and sign up for duties which will include calling me names, or else you may already be a member of the group that has read Ms Truss and think Giles Brandreth is cool.
I am the first person to agree with anyone who says that the rules that govern the use of apostrophes in the English language are actually quite complex and difficult to remember in their entirety, BUT there's a really simple way to get started: objects, be they tomatoes or bicycle wheels, tents or Compact Discs, computers or saddles, DON'T NEED APOSTROPHES WHEN THERE'S MORE THAN ONE OF THEM...
I have some sympathy for the writer who having mastered this simple and easily applied rule, continues bravely on to attempt to master the pluralisation of abbreviated words such as CD or rear mech.. Suggestions, please?

[Bonefishblues]

Did you perhaps mean "purposefully"?

I'm in your camp, by the way

[[XAP]Bob]

Suggestions, please?

Carry a pot of white paint.

Or become descriptivist rather than prescriptivist... no, I find that hard to do as well...

[beardy]

It is all the teacher's fault.

[Bonefishblues]

Oh I think it's wider than that

[Mick F]

We used to have a paper shop in the village ran by Mr and Mrs Doyle.
They sold daily papers - amongst other things of course.

You would think the shop should have been called "Doyle's Dailies" wouldn't you?

Perhaps the signwriter wasn't any good at apostrophes and plurals?
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=gunnis ... 9,,0,10.89

[thirdcrank]

... DON'T NEED APOSTROPHES WHEN THERE'S MORE THAN ONE OF THEM...

Is "there's" an abbreviation for "there are" here?

[Ben@Forest]

The one I've always had difficulties with is the apostrophe on dates. E.g. I can understand This is a bicycle of the 1890's but don't get In the 1890's cycling became popular. It seems to be what people write nowadays but what belongs to the 1890s in the second example? Cycling? Popularity?

[Psamathe]

... BUT there's a really simple way to get started: objects, be they tomatoes or bicycle wheels, tents or Compact Discs, computers or saddles, DON'T NEED APOSTROPHES WHEN THERE'S MORE THAN ONE OF THEM...

From:http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/apostrophe (indicating possession rather than omission)

Plural nouns that end in –s
With a plural noun that already ends in -s: add an apostrophe after the s:
The mansion was converted into a girls’ school.
The work is due to start in two weeks’ time.
My duties included cleaning out the horses’ stables.

Plural nouns that do not end in -s
With a plural noun that doesn’t end in –s: add an apostrophe plus s:
The children’s father came round to see me.
He employs 14 people at his men’s clothing store.

So, shouldn't

We used to have a paper shop in the village ran by Mr and Mrs Doyle.
They sold daily papers - amongst other things of course.

You would think the shop should have been called "Doyle's Dailies" wouldn't you?

it be Doyles' Dailies (because there's more than one Doyle) ?

But then Grammar was something I never could grasp.

Ian

[[XAP]Bob]

We used to have a paper shop in the village ran by Mr and Mrs Doyle.
They sold daily papers - amongst other things of course.

You would think the shop should have been called "Doyle's Dailies" wouldn't you?

Perhaps the signwriter wasn't any good at apostrophes and plurals?
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=gunnis ... 9,,0,10.89

Is that why it shut down?

Or should I say "I's that ..."

[Vorpal]

... DON'T NEED APOSTROPHES WHEN THERE'S MORE THAN ONE OF THEM...

Is "there's" an abbreviation for "there are" here?

Or maybe that should be

DON'T NEED APOSTROPHES WHEN THERES' MORE THAN ONE OF THEM

[MockCyclist]

I may have posted this before

[Mick F]

We used to have a paper shop in the village ran by Mr and Mrs Doyle.
They sold daily papers - amongst other things of course.

You would think the shop should have been called "Doyle's Dailies" wouldn't you?

it be Doyles' Dailies (because there's more than one Doyle) ?

But then Grammar was something I never could grasp.

It was a singular Doyle, as in one family name.
Had it been two separate Doyles, it would have been "Doyles' Dailies" as you so rightly point out.
As it is/was, there was only one family.

Why did they shut it down?
Dunno, but it was soon after the Big Flood of Gunnislake some years ago. The rains came down and built up behind the village, and floodwater rushed down. The shop was filled with a few feet of water as it drained very slowly underneath the front door. A few other properties suffered too.

[JohnW]

We used to have a paper shop in the village ran by Mr and Mrs Doyle.
They sold daily papers - amongst other things of course.

You would think the shop should have been called "Doyle's Dailies" wouldn't you?

Perhaps the signwriter wasn't any good at apostrophes and plurals?
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=gunnis ... 9,,0,10.89

note the Batmobile parked in front.