Words About Words - Dave Barry: Dear Mister Language Person: What is ...

Top 100 • The Book • Contact

A Web site by Paul McFedries

WORDS ABOUT WORDS

Dear Mister Language Person: What is the purpose of the apostrophe?

Answer: The apostrophe is used mainly in hand-lettered small business signs to alert the reader that an "S" is coming up at the end of a word, as in: WE DO NOT EXCEPT PERSONAL CHECK'S, or: NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ITEM'S.

Another important grammar concept to bear in mind when creating hand-lettered small-business signs is that you should put quotation marks around random words for decoration, as in "TRY" OUR HOT DOG'S, or even TRY "OUR" HOT DOG'S.
—Dave Barry, American humorist, Tips for Writer's

Posted on November 13, 2002 at 4:12 PM

Dave Barry quotations

Comment on this Item:

Function FormatDate(d) If Month(d) = 1 Then s = "January" If Month(d) = 2 Then s = "February" If Month(d) = 3 Then s = "March" If Month(d) = 4 Then s = "April" If Month(d) = 5 Then s = "May" If Month(d) = 6 Then s = "June" If Month(d) = 7 Then s = "July" If Month(d) = 8 Then s = "August" If Month(d) = 9 Then s = "September" If Month(d) = 10 Then s = "October" If Month(d) = 11 Then s = "November" If Month(d) = 12 Then s = "December" s = s & " " & Day(d) & ", " & Year(d) FormatDate = s End Function Function FormatTime(d) If Hour(d) = 0 Then s = "12" ElseIf Hour(d) > 0 And Hour(d) <= 12 Then s = Hour(d) Else s = Hour(d) - 12 End If If Minute(d) < 10 Then s = s & ":0" & Minute(d) Else s = s & ":" & Minute(d) End If If Hour(d) <=12 Then s = s & " AM" Else s = s & " PM" End If FormatTime = s End Function Function RemoveSpaces(sOriginalWord) sWord = sOriginalWord If Left(sWord, 1) = "-" Then sWord = Right(sWord, Len(sWord) - 1) End If Do While InStr(sWord, " ") <> 0 spacePos = InStr(sWord, " ") If spacePos <> 0 Then sWord = Left(sWord, spacePos - 1) & Right(sWord, Len(sWord) - spacePos) End If Loop Do While InStr(sWord, "/") <> 0 spacePos = InStr(sWord, "/") If spacePos <> 0 Then sWord = Left(sWord, spacePos - 1) & "-" & Right(sWord, Len(sWord) - spacePos) End If Loop Do While InStr(sWord, "'") <> 0 spacePos = InStr(sWord, "'") If spacePos <> 0 Then sWord = Left(sWord, spacePos - 1) & Right(sWord, Len(sWord) - spacePos) End If Loop RemoveSpaces = sWord End Function Function ReplaceSingleQuotesWithHTMLCode(sOriginalText) str = sOriginalText Do While InStr(str, "'") <> 0 quotePos = InStr(str, "'") If quotePos <> 0 Then str = Left(str, quotePos - 1) & "'" & Right(str, Len(str) - quotePos) End If Loop ReplaceSingleQuotesWithHTMLCode = str End Function Function ReplaceAllQuotesWithHTMLCode(sOriginalText) str = sOriginalText Do While InStr(str, "'") <> 0 quotePos = InStr(str, "'") If quotePos <> 0 Then str = Left(str, quotePos - 1) & "'" & Right(str, Len(str) - quotePos) End If Loop Do While InStr(str, """") <> 0 quotePos = InStr(str, """") If quotePos <> 0 Then str = Left(str, quotePos - 1) & """ & Right(str, Len(str) - quotePos) End If Loop ReplaceAllQuotesWithHTMLCode = str End Function Function ReplaceString(strField, strFind, strReplace) findLocation = InStr(strField, strFind) Do While findLocation <> 0 If findLocation = 1 Then leftField = "" Else leftField = Left(strField, findLocation - 1) End If rightfield = Right(strField, Len(strField) - findLocation - (Len(strFind) - 1)) strField = leftField & strReplace & rightfield findLocation = InStr(findLocation + Len(strFind) + 3, strField, strFind) Loop ReplaceString = strField End Function

Words About Words:

Quotations Index

Author Index

Recent posts:

returnment
tipping element
"mug me" earphones
renoviction
philanthrocapitalism
reverse Bradley effect
silent run
myco-diesel
punditariat
liquor-cycle

Select an archive:

A B C D E F G H I
J K L M N O P Q R
S T U V W X Y Z #

Other links:

Word Spy Citations

My Favorite Words

My Neologisms

Search Word Spy:

Subscribe to Word Spy:

Get Word Spy by RSS

Word Spy on Twitter

Lingua Techna Posts:

Copyright © 1995 - 2012 Paul McFedries and Logophilia Limited