The grocer’s apostrophe: a weeping pustule on the shining face of English?

Posted by Colleen on March 4, 2013 in Blog |

English usage and grammar is a hot mess, to be frank: rules that contradict hundreds of years of use appear out of nowhere and for no discernible reason; spelling is off the hook; and even when something is nice and tidy (“sneak” entered English in 1594 and its past tense was “sneaked”) we complicate it needlessly (“snuck” showed up in the 1800s for no good reason and is now considered a standard past tense of “sneak” in the US). The reality is that many of the bits of grammar that we think of as wrong are actually just a matter of preference.

Thanks for that, Kory Stamper, and Happy Grammar Day!

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