Grammar Quiz

[davieG]

Are you grammatically gormless or a punctuation perfectionist?

Apostrophes. They’ve caused more arguments, disputes and unfettered violence than every family wedding, christening and funeral put together. But can you select the correct use of the apostrophes in these sentences? (We’ve used the BBC style guidelines for these examples – so blame them, not us)

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/12vbByzjT1hcmFgh79f2MHw/are-you-grammatically-gormless-or-a-punctuation-perfectionist

 

7/10 but then I did fail my English GCE.

[Izzy]

@HighPeakFox

 

Your time to shine 

[Unabomber]

7 for me but read a few wrong so should’ve got 10

[HighPeakFox]

I feel set up to fail @Izzy 

[Buce]

[Mythyaar]

9 ...😢 -   Jesus'. I opted for Jesus's

[Webbo]

7/10. I learned something there, genuinely didn't know a couple of them.

[Milo]

Fvck Richard Harris and his fvcking spats...spat's...spats'

 

 

 

 

[Strokes]

Stupid game anyway.

[RonnieTodger]

7. Went to shit towards the end

[Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo]

9, that stupid Harris one got me but I can't see why it's correct for "Jesus'", but "Harris's" is supposedly right. I thought any name or surname ending with "s" (Chris, James, Harris etc) you don't add another "s" after the apostrophe

 

Cvnts.

[dsr-burnley]

I got 8 but I disagreed with the other two.  To claim that Jesus's is wrong but Harris's is right on the grounds that Jesus appears in the Bible?  I'm not saying they are wrong to treat it like that, but I am saying that it's too fine a point for them to claim that it's wrong not to do it.

 

Same with dates.  If you choose not to apostrophise 1960s but to apostrophise plural letters such as b's.  Fine.  But that's not based on a strictly logical principle, it's based on the idea that apostrophising a plural letter looks clearer.  So if I choose (as I do) to apply the same principle to dates, and write 1960's because I think it looks clearer, their opinion that that is wrong is based on nothing more than "I wouldn't do it that way".

Edited 13 May 2021 by dsr-burnley

[Domsdad]

Can’t believe I only got 7, and I went to a Grammer School as well

Edited 13 May 2021 by Domsdad

[David Guiza]

9/10 for the same reason as above. The Jesus one got me (and my wife, an English Teacher and English Literature graduate). Even the question states that it's more of a style guide than a grammatical rule, so I'm not sure that counts . 

 

 

[Zear0]

10/10 2nd time around.

[Ecdysiast]

At least I'll get to celebrate one thing this week...