Thu 8 Mar 2012
You Want Fry’s with That?
Posted by anaglyph under Australiana, Daft Advertising, Idiots, Punctuation
[12] Comments
Yes, dear Acowlytes, I can hear your cry’s of angst from here. I know you’d all love to be fly’s on the wall to hear some kind of explanation for the proliferation of the above atrocities, but our spy’s have been unable to shed any light on the matter. It seems that the ink hardly even dry’s before these labels are printed and the products shipped. I’d love for the sky’s to open up and lightning to fry these idiot’s asses, but I fear it’s a forlorn hope.
Also, to hyphenate or not to hyphenate, that is the question.
Fry’s what?
Fry’s Perfect? I dunno.
Fry’s ‘Perfect for BBQ’s’ 1kg (of) frozen!
It’s BBQ’s ‘kilogram of frozen’ which belongs to Fry.
Frozen what, you may ask. Frozen is now a noun.
‘…these idiot’s…’ Was that an intentional singular possessive?
Yes.
oh don’t come the raw prawn with me
Sigh.
Well, “BBQ’s” is acceptable: you can pluralize initialisms with an apostrophe.
It’s the strangely consistent “fry’s” that’s puzzling. “Stirs-fry” is right out. “Stir-frys” is just awkward, while “stir-fries” sounds like stirrable McFries. Both seem considered acceptable to most dictionaries though, while “fry’s” just… isn’t.
From a quick Google, it looks like it’s tricky for some, because it’s a compound noun, formed of two verbs. And apparently they’ve not encountered compound nouns before and think they’re pluralizing a verb, and then their head asplodes.
Relatedly:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/64334_400589693299797_153786011313501_1511881_13777492_n.jpg
I’m inclined to disagree about apostrophed initialisms – I abhor the almost ubiquitous ‘CD’s’ for example. There is absolutely nothing wrong with CDs or BBQs or TVs. The apostrophe is simply superfluous.
Love the cartoon.
We were always taught that acronyms are like numbers in that respect. If you are talking about the years 1990-1999, it’s the 1990s (or the ’90s in context). If you were talking, however, about something belonging to it (ex: The 1990’s hairstyles weren’t nearly as atrocious as the 1980’s), then possessive it is.
It varies according to who’s style guide you’re reading at the time. Like quite a lot of English, in fact.
As has been pointed out before, she’s a total whore. She’ll flex her grammar and punctuation for anyone who’s willing to write a book about her.
Wikipedia’s page on the apostrophe is good reading for the bored.