[Gllug] Perl, the dogs nadgers?

[Nix]

On Sun, 22 Jul 2001, Alex Hudson spake:
> On Sun, Jul 22, 2001 at 12:59:22AM +0100, David Irvine wrote:
>> Sorry to bring this back up but wouldnt it be fly's since that is the plural
>> of fly as in the annoyning insects that buzz? Or is my dyslexia kicking in?
> 
> Your dyslexia :)
> 
> If the fly had a rubber ball, then that would be the fly's. If the fly had a
> gang, they would be the flies. Also, the fly flies but the flies fly :P If
> the fly was the leader of the flies, then then fly's flies fly. 

More to the point, plurals never, never, ever take apostrophes.

> The use of apostrophe is old English, as in "John's donkey" was originally
> "John, his donkey" - the possessive apostrophe merely being abbreviation. (I
> believe, anyway :)

You'd be wrong; this is a persistent urban legend --- or, rather, a
misinterpretation dating from the 16th century. See
<http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-pos2.htm>.

-- 
`> You never need to use # for anything, either?
 Not to date, but # would suffice if I did.'
                    -- Stig Brautaset espouses uniquely effective ways
                       of protecting HTML from #-stripping preprocessors

-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at linux.co.uk
http://list.ftech.net/mailman/listinfo/gllug