From: Ger Hobbelt <g...@hobbelt.com>
> On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 6:42 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt <t...@toybox.placo.com>
> wrote:
> > Here is a patch to your patch:
> [...]
> > plural, not possessive.
>
> Thanks for the correction. It's appreciated!
Hey. Don't give up so easily. While it's possible to find backing
for almost any opinion involving an apostrophe, a rule like "plural, not
possessive" is much too simple to be reliable. See, for example:
http://www.meredith.edu/grammar/plural.htm
[...]
Although usage has changed in recent years, some handbooks call
for an apostrophe in the plural forms of numbers, letters, and
words used as words:
How many 1's do we have in the line?
We put x's on the incorrect answers.
The no's resounded loudly throughout the chamber.
[...]
Google can find many more concurring opinions.
I claim that a C run-time function, like "printf" here, qualifies as
a word used as a word, and so "printf's" is a perfectly reasonable
plural form. On the other hand, a plural form like "printfs" would be
indistinguisable from a different function, "printfs()", which might
easily exist. (Is "abs" really "abs()", or is it the plural of "ab()"?
How about "fgets" and "fputs?"? Better yet, "utime" and "utimes"?
Everything's complicated. Trust no one. Especially not a native
English speaker. As Count Aristid Karpathy once said, "The English do
not know how to speak their own language. Only foreigners who have been
taught to speak it speak it well." The story's about the same for
writing as it is for speaking.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven M. Schweda s...@antinode-info
382 South Warwick Street (+1) 651-699-9818
Saint Paul MN 55105-2547
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