Saturday, April 05, 2008

Matthew McConaughey: Haunted by Punctuation

From his MySpace blog:

Ghost’s Of Girlfriends Past
GOGP...began work in Boston 6 weeks ago...nice to be in a winter environment after 3 summers in a row, but that California sun gonna feel good in June....I am having a blast...my character, Conner Mead, really has a strong point of view on love, women, and family...he’s even funnier and more heartfelt than I thought he was on the page...its cool being in a very edgy comedy where the dialogue and situations skirt that "R" rated innuendo..its adult humor for the young at heart... (Read...more...)
He's obviously abusing the ellipsis [kids, don't smoke a lot of weed!], but his apostrophes--missing and present--are largely catastrophes. He's missing two and has one extra, meaning he only used the apostrophe correctly 25 percent of the time in this paragraph.

Just in case anyone else is dazed and confused, apostrophes are used:

1) in contractions. When two words collide and drop a letter, the apostrophe lets you know that's [short for "that has"] happened.

2) in possessives. The apostrophe tells you it's Matthew McConaughey's blog.

They are not used to make plurals, though we will politely look the other way if you mention the "A's" on your report card.

There is such a thing as a plural possessive, however. To make these, first find the plural form of the noun. Woman becomes women. Then, add the apostrophe+S. Women's.

This is really only tricky when your noun ends in S. He is Hank Jones. He is one of the Joneses. Keeping up with the Joneses' investments is difficult.

No comments: