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Pastimes : SI Grammar and Spelling Lab -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jack Clarke who wrote (150)1/2/1998 5:26:00 PM
From: Janice Shell  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 4710
 
Jack--

Well, my GOD, I'm not a barbarian! I'd NEVER write "Isis's". Though perhaps in future I'll be more daring.

I think this usage is--like so many others--a result of an attempt to be "refined". Think of the crooked pinkie (did you know that "pink" was the ancient Gallic--ask MrB--word for "little finger"?) that the hoi polloi feels the need to employ when raising a teacup.

Uh-oh. Is hoi polloi singular or plural?

Janice



To: Jack Clarke who wrote (150)1/2/1998 5:26:00 PM
From: Tommaso  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 4710
 
I thought it was Professor Strunk who would thunder at his classes, "So gentlemen, remember: Moses's daughter IS legitimate."

But, unless E. B. White or some subsequent editor intervened, I guess that Strunk did not say that and it was a dissenting contemporary.


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