Apostrophe crimes

[jdaw1]

My food correct. A pedant might suggest that it should be “Alex (pommy42)” rather than “Pommy42 (Alex)”, and “BRPetrie” rather than “BRP”.

For the sake of the well being of any pedant's and that they may sleep well at night I have correcting this hideous organisational offence .....

[jdaw1]

In Streatham, on Telford Avenue, at ///atom.lifts.couches, on the road:


Yes, an apostrophe can indicate missing letters. And the word “Roundabout” has been abbreviated by the omission of four letters, all vowels, none of which are where the apostrophe is.

[PhilW]

In Streatham, on Telford Avenue, at ///atom.lifts.couches, on the road:


Yes, an apostrophe can indicate missing letters. And the word “Roundabout” has been abbreviated by the omission of four letters, all vowels, none of which are where the apostrophe is.

That did, in fact, make me laugh out loud! For goodness' sake!

[jdaw1]

That did, in fact, make me laugh out loud! For goodness' sake!

Agreed: schoolboy error.

[Alex Bridgeman]

Schl’by er’rr, surely?

[PhilW]

Schl’by er’rr, surely?

Have you been drinking? And don't call me Shirley.

[akzy]

In Romania...

20241130_172610.jpg (236.71 KiB) Viewed 830 times

I've been told that the Romanian language doesn't even use a'postrophes.

[MigSU]

Portuguese doesn't use them either. Well, almost doesn't. There are some niche uses.

[Glenn E.]

Portuguese doesn't use them either. Well, almost doesn't. There are some niche uses.

Yes, but Portuguese makes up for its lack of apostrophes by having 12 (ish) accented vowels plus an accented consonant for good measure.

á, é, í, ó, ú, â, ê, ô, ã, õ, à, and rarely ò (though I haven't seen this one yet). And apparently the language used to also have è, ì, and ù.

The consonant is, of course, ç. My understanding is that ñ is only used in Spanish.

[MigSU]

Portuguese doesn't use them either. Well, almost doesn't. There are some niche uses.

Yes, but Portuguese makes up for its lack of apostrophes by having 12 (ish) accented vowels plus an accented consonant for good measure.

á, é, í, ó, ú, â, ê, ô, ã, õ, à, and rarely ò (though I haven't seen this one yet). And apparently the language used to also have è, ì, and ù.

The consonant is, of course, ç. My understanding is that ñ is only used in Spanish.

You are correct on all counts. Impressive.

[jdaw1]

The consonant is, of course, ç.

Poças.

The e macron, as in Croft Sērikos, isn’t proper Portuguese.

[Glenn E.]

What's "fun" is that the only use I've seen (so far) for à is as an abreviation for... "a a". Yes, they shorten 2 x 'a' to just 'à', but only when the two letters are different words.

[Alex Bridgeman]

Portuguese doesn't use them either. Well, almost doesn't. There are some niche uses.

Perhaps a lot more when spoken than when written? Such as “….de ir”, which is only ever spoken as “…d’ir”. Caused me lots of confusion at first.

But no more confusion than the usual Portuguese practice of only saying half the syllables in a sentence. Or inventing syllables which aren’t in a sentence.

“O que estudas português?” is normally spoken as “Oo kek stoodas português?” Honestly! And people say English is a difficult language to master!!

[MigSU]

Portuguese doesn't use them either. Well, almost doesn't. There are some niche uses.

Perhaps a lot more when spoken than when written? Such as “….de ir”, which is only ever spoken as “…d’ir”. Caused me lots of confusion at first.

But no more confusion than the usual Portuguese practice of only saying half the syllables in a sentence. Or inventing syllables which aren’t in a sentence.

“O que estudas português?” is normally spoken as “Oo kek stoodas português?” Honestly! And people say English is a difficult language to master!!

Yes, those were the niche uses that came to mind - the change from «de/do/da» to «d'». There are a few written ones - Borda d'Água is a well known publication in Portugal - but you're absolutely right that, were we to write as we speak, there would be thousands of examples.

I agree that the relative disconnect between the written and the spoken language is probably a nightmare to anyone trying to get at least a small grasp of the language

[Glenn E.]

“O que estudas português?” is normally spoken as “Oo kek stoodas português?” Honestly! And people say English is a difficult language to master!!

Brazilian is much more... sensible? It doesn't just add 'sh' to the ends of words randomly, and leading/trailing vowels are usually still pronounced.

Your example above would be "oh keh estoodas português" but... also wouldn't be said that way in the first place. That reads as "what you study Portuguese?" to me, with "tu" before "estudas" implied. If you want to ask someone if they study Portuguese, it would just be "você estuda Português" or "tu estudas Português".

Setúbal is "SCHTOOble" in Portuguese but "seTOOble" in Brazilian.

[MigSU]

This has now become the unofficial Portuguese language thread.

[jdaw1]

This has now become the unofficial Portuguese language thread.

It is a friendlier use for this thread.

But still, we are all at ever-present risk. Use them well.