Monday, February 24, 2020
They can't avoid cant
BBC does a halfway humorous piece on apostrophes but totally fucks up the intended purpose....
I used a screencap to show the actual font.
Can you tell the difference between the single quotes and the apostrophes? There is a difference if you look with a microscope.
But there's no difference in most online fonts:
Are you absolutely confident you know your 'your' from your 'you're'? Your 'lets' from your 'let's'? Or the one that seems to trip so many up: 'its' from 'it's'?
Italics or caps would reduce confusion:
Are you absolutely confident you know your your from your you're? Your lets from your let's? Or the one that seems to trip so many up: its from it's?
Later the article cites one sane and sensible Expert:
I used a screencap to show the actual font.
Can you tell the difference between the single quotes and the apostrophes? There is a difference if you look with a microscope.
But there's no difference in most online fonts:
Are you absolutely confident you know your 'your' from your 'you're'? Your 'lets' from your 'let's'? Or the one that seems to trip so many up: 'its' from 'it's'?
Italics or caps would reduce confusion:
Are you absolutely confident you know your your from your you're? Your lets from your let's? Or the one that seems to trip so many up: its from it's?
Later the article cites one sane and sensible Expert:
Laurel MacKenzie, Assistant Professor in Linguistics at New York University, is not surprised that norms around apostrophe usage have changed. "Writing, spelling and punctuation conventions are always pretty arbitrary," she says. "They’re set down by people who pontificate on how they think the language should be used and written – and that tends to change; the apostrophe is subject to whims of fashion, just like other things in culture and society are."... but concludes by sticking with the pontificators.
Labels: Language update
¶ 5:24 AM
