FreeLists / openbeos / [openbeos] Re: AW: Re: AW: Locale Kit

[<kevin.lawton@xxxxxx>]

 <snip> 
| > | What about that pesky apostrophe?  Other languages like 
| > | Spanish seem to get
| > | along fine without abbreviations.  Why don't (do not) we drop that
| > | apostrophe and simplify English.  It'll (It will) definitely help
| > | non-English speakers learn English. 
| > As I would have thought you'd realise, the apostrophe has two 
| > distinct uses: 
| >  - to allow the written language to more closely follow how it is 
| > actually spoken; as to say 'we will' instead of 'we'll'. 
| >  - to distinguish between a plural and a possessive; as 
| with '(bunch 
| > of) grapes' or '(the) grape's (skin)'. 
| > Without it, or if used improperly, written English could be quite 
| > confusing. 
| 
| The point was that the same is true of other languages, with 
| respect to 
| accents. Speakers of most other languages couldn't care less 
| about the 
| preservation of apostrophes, though. 
That's fine - if they are going to conduct their business in their native 
language. 
If they are going to conduct international business communications in English 
then they need to use the language correctly to avoid misunderstandings. 
Kevin.