So far in my English 326 class, we have learned about apostrophes. Coming into this class, I was fairly confident in my grammar abilities, particularly with the usage of apostrophes. Although I was already well versed in when to use an apostrophe and when to not use one, I couldn’t explain the rules; it was more just “it feels right to put one here.” After talking about apostrophes in class, I feel a lot BETTER, MORE CONFIDENT, MORE SELF-ASSURED now that I have the rules nailed down for me and have an actual list of them. I also learned why you use ’s at the end of words (Eg: I do’s). It is for clarification purposes. (Eg: You wouldn’t want to say “I dos.”)
I don’t have any particular questions about using apostrophes, but I am a little unsure about grammar changing over time and the different house styles that we discussed in class. We have a list of rules, but it seems like they are very subjective. Are the “new” apostrophe rules correct? I understand that grammar changes over time and has different trends, but how do you know which one is really correct? Are either of the lists (new and old rules) okay to use as long as you keep the rules consistent throughout? It certainly seems that way when it comes to newspaper/magazine house style, in which they choose whichever styles of rules they want to use and keep it consistent throughout the publication.
I wrote about apostrophes as well! I think that while the rules keep changing over time, it is still a bit subjective. Some rules do seem to be concrete (ie. contractions), but rules concerning possessive forms kind of seem to be up to the personal style of the writer. Just in our class alone, many people would prefer to add an additional "s" after the name James to signify possession, whereas I would put "James'" and not add the extra letter. I'm not sure if certain schools or districts would require you to follow a certain rule when teaching, but I think that as long as you are being consistent you could go with either one, especially considering that professional publications vary so much.
ReplyDeleteI also had a very similar question. The gray areas can get really frustrating because there's not a set way of doing things (for the most part). What Rebekah said about consistency is the only solution to this that I could think of. It's just like the magazines we have been looking through. Hopefully you found that they stuck with one rule throughout the publication and if they didn't it should seem less successful. Now, about what to teach, that is difficult. I feel like it depends on what age group you are teaching to because students can easily get confused and frustrated if they don't understand that one way over the other isn't wrong and that it's just a matter of preference. A lot of students like easy rules that they can remember, not countless ones that apply to the same topic like apostrophes...
ReplyDeleteremember, too, that you have soooo many other things to teach that are waaaay more important than, say, how to show plural of numbers.
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