WHY Microsoft is bad
Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 10:22 pm<blockquote><i>Originally posted by Benoit</i><p>I'll ask him again then.<p>No, it can't be argued, because I have yet to see one site telling me otherwise.<br>If you believe that it's okay if it gets the message accross, would you like me to start typing "liek dis"? I know you wouldn't.<br></blockquote><p>In the case of grave misspellings Benoit, those make a message more difficult to read, and furthermore, spelling effects the apparent pronunciation; which means that spelling a certain way can make you sound drunk or just plain unintelligent.<p>In the case of something obscure and trivial, such as apostrophe placement after the identifier for a particular decade, it really doesn't matter. In printed publications, you're liable to find it written both ways.<p>You'll find it both ways, because the apostrophe does not always serve as a posessive article. "It's" for example does not indicate something belongs to "It," but rather, it's a contraction of "It is." Just the same, "Why's" is a contraction of "Why is" rather than indicating that something belongs to "Why."<p>Just the same, it's a common practice to use an apostrophe in the plural form of a proper noun that ends in numerals; for example, "We've got several 109's down at the docks." You wouldn't spell out "seven, One-zero-nines" because that looks awkward. Just the same, you wouldn't write, "seven 109s" because that looks awkward, as well.<p>Just the same, we might use 80's, or we might use '80s, but we generally wouldn't use '80's, because that, as well, looks awkward. Remember that the written English language is geared toward keeping the language easy to read, and when used properly, offers a minimum of stumbling blocks. That doesn't necessarily mean it's easy to write, but quite specifically, it's supposed to be easy to read.<p>Most importantly though, the matter is trivial. Neither form, be it 80's or 80s causes confusion to the reader, which makes it a moot detail.<p>Benoit, I would reccomend that you stop making arguments over trivial details like this. It's stuff like this that has gotten you banned from other forums and has otherwise caused you to lose friendships. The world will not end because of a minor inaccuracy in grammar, behavior or debate. No one cares if it's "1980's" or "1980s". No one particularly cares if someone mistakenly types "their" instead of "there" or "they're" from time to time. A minor inaccuracy in an argument expressed in a debate does not merit a new message-- especially when the debater's opponent will inevitably call him on his mistake, anyway. Just let the conversation flow where it will. No one likes a nit-picker.<p>[size=small][Edit by PhanGarrett on [TIME]1083018834[/TIME]][/size]
