It’s wrong of me to pick on a comment posted in haste on a web site without a preview feature and critique the use of apostrophes isn’t it?
Yes it is. Of course it is. So I’ll let you critique them yourself:
Was astounded at how the country is divided into very tight areas where Sikhs, Bengali’s, Kashmiri Muslims, Pakistani Muslims and Hindu’s live. (The TimesOnline)
Ach, I can’t resist. There seems to be an awkwardness about pluralising words that end in a vowel. What do you think? And every day I see naked posessives stripped of their apostrophes, following the german usage.
Do you know something? I find this change in the language exciting.
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Hi Ben
Here’s my amateur tuppen’orth – nouns that end in a vowel in our most common second language, French, are generally feminine; consonants, masculine. Consonants are a firmative shutting sound, in contrast to a vowel’s more open quality. If only Freud were a linguist.
Anyway, the poster is female, and has incorrectly given a possessive quality to those nouns that end in a vowel. What I infer from that is she has a problem with confidence with the opposite sex, and is struggling against it subconsciously. She’s posting her opinions on a news website as well, which is itself a cry for help of sorts.