Re: CD Music Format

(Top posting on purpose)

Look, y'all:
A couple of you think that I'm a pedant. Hell, no.
I've done technical writing. So, I'm damn careful to ensure (note: not "insure:" think!) that what I say is clear and tight; I work to make what I write as easy as possible for the reader to understand. That's why I get pissed off when I see the apostrophe used for plurals, and especially when people who should know better make statements that the misuse is correct.

The reason why it's wrong is because it makes some people think that you mean possessive -- to hell with the rules: misusing the apostrophe confuses the reader: slam-dunk! That's the reason behind my post. English is a confusing language because the rules aren't consistent -- one reason for this is that England was invaded at times by folks who spoke different languages -- all of which wound up in the same stewpot. (more below)

Ron Hardin wrote: 
Todd H. wrote:

CD's is correct.  Acronyms take the apostrophe to prevent you from
trying to pronounce it as a word, serving as a separator.



B f-----g S!

Actually, the experts can't come to complete agreement on what's
correct, and the consensus tends to change over time... which is why
it's so dicey for folks to get their panties in a bunch over such
things.  In matters of grammar, it's a good idea to check 3 or 4
sources before espousing something as absolute.  For instance,
Wikipedia has an entry, for instance that hints at what Richard is
taking as 100% correct:
       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe_(mark)

But, we humans do like to point out what they deem as mistakes.  After
all, people love being right, and the quickest way to be right without
the trouble of original thought is to point out a little something
that's wrong.  Just as I did here ;-).  LOL...


As I wrote above, my attitude about this comes directly from the needs of my work; the needs of my work are not to satisfy pedants, but to satisfy the needs of my reader. I work to eliminate obfuscation -- to ensure that the reader knows the information exactly and clearly. This is really important when, for instance, we're writing about the innards of radiation therapy machines -- and here, confusing language could result in a patient being microwaved to death.

I also happen to think that when I'm writing a software manual, that the reader deserves the benefit of clear desription. There's an awful lot of awful documentation out there (but not written by me). One can write precisely and humanely at the same time, and I like this type of writing. It used to be the house style of Eastman Kodak -- perhaps the best technical writing I've ever read. Folksy. Goes down real easy. Not cutesy latter-day computer doc. Just nice, friendly, midwestern English. The way that they used to talk at Radio Moscow!


There are descriptive grammars, that is, careful studies of what people
actually do, and you can be an expert on that.   In descriptive grammar,
CDs is growing in usage, and I don't know what's happening to CD's.

Certainly you can't write "dot your i's" without the apostrophe, so the
apostrophe separator function as plural can't die out.

There are no experts on what the usage ought to be when there's
a disagreement, though you might want to copy somebody who impresses
you otherwise in style; or notice that most people regard something
as ungrammatical, so your style will be interpreted.

Fowler wrote a Modern English Usage chiefly by getting readers to
care about the language enough to recognize why you might want to
do things one way rather than the other.

Grammar in schools is to give children a good start doing things
the way most people do them in standard English.  They can vary
from that when they get the hang of the language.

I never could do grammar in the classroom. I'm known as a good writer, and it's all been intuitive. However, I'm a straight-shooter when it comes to clarity. That is, unless I wanna mis-Dubbyaficate on poipose.

Richard
.

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