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Re: Singulars, Plurals, and Apostrophes?

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Nathan LeonardFeb 22, 2007
 

 
I'm not quite sure what your point is regarding "it's what you hear, not what's written".  By that logic, I agree that "ships" and "ship's" would be repetition, but all the examples you gave concerned the singular and the possessive, which don't even sound the same.

From what I've heard, it seems fairly consistently established that plurals and singulars count as separate words for the purposes of repetition, but possessives count as singulars.  The "cat's" and "pandora's" examples both fit that pattern, and the "ship's" example was irrelevent to this discussion because (according to you) there was clearly no repetition of any forms in that case.  That seems to make total sense to me, and it is clear from the context in almost every case whether somebody has said the plural or the possessive.  Sometimes people might argue that they'd been planning to say something else, but again, in most cases it is fairly clear whether or not they're lying.  Ultimately, the chairman has to make the decision, that's what he's there for.

As regards to the words-within-words issue, I agree that it is completely nonsensical to argue that you can repeat a word just because that sequence of letters appears in a word on the card.  Robert, can you remember how the decisions went in the examples you gave?  If they went against the challenger, then all is well.

By the way, Gregory, I know your example was a made-up one, but you could have chosen a better one - "chairmans" is not the plural of "chairman", it's "chairmen".  I also disagree with your point - it's clear from the context that it's the possessive that's on the card, as "The Chairmans Hair" would make no sense grammatically, even if "chairmans" was the plural of "chairman".

Overall, I think that the rules on this have been fairly well-established, and have generally been followed consistently.  Nicholas does sometimes get confused about it, but then he gets confused about quite a lot of things, of which this is by no means the most annoying.

On 2/22/07, Robert Torres <bobbyshaddoe3004@...> wrote:

but that still doesn't excuse the fact that several times in the past before that episode Nick himself said that 'it is what you hear, not what is written'. 

thomaswake16 <thomaswake16@ hotmail.com> wrote:

--- In just-a-minute@..., "bobbyshaddoe3004"
<bobbyshaddoe3004@...> wrote:
>
> There was also an occasion back in 78 or 79, when the Gang of Four
> were together, I think the subject was 'Parbuckles' or something.
> Clement was speaking saying I believe, 'In a ship's chandler shop',
> Derek buzzes for repetition of ships, even though Clement hadn't said
> even said ships before, and this incredible argument erupts when
> Clement justifies by saying that he said 'ship apostrophe s chandler'
> and Nicholas allowed it.
>

To be fair, on this occasion the ruling only went in favour of Clement
because Ian Messiter said this was the way it should be done.

---

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