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March 6, 2006

I swear that "Grammar" deserves its own category on this blog

It happens that on this vacation I am reading the book Eats, Shoots, and Leaves: The Zero-Tolerance Approach to Puncatuation Punctuation, which covers proper use of punctuation and makes note of public laxity on this issue. Spending time reading this while on my vacation to Amsterdam has also no doubt convinced my cousin's fiancé, with whom I am staying, that I am quite insane.

The author of the book, Lynne Truss, will be no doubt upset by the fact that not even the Dutch are immune modern offenses to proper syntax. At Voorburgwal 383, near Spui Square, we are confronted with this:

This, my friends, is a major violation. I refer readers to the Quick Guide to the Apostrophe.

Update: The store is in the process of moving to Spui 12, around the corner. Along with a commenter, I, too, at least for a moment entertained the possibility that the piano store may be owned by a Mr. or Mrs. Piano (hey, it could happen). However, if you go to the website of the store, right there on the website, in big letters, they're advertising "Piano's." Really!

Also, in defense of the store, archaic English usages specify the use of an apostrophe to pluralize a word that ends with a vowel, such as "piano's" or "banana's." After consulting with my cousin's Dutch fiancé, I was told by him that it is not unknown in Dutch to use an apostrophe to pluralize some words ending in vowels, particularly foreign words, but not others.

(don't worry, I will actually blog about some other aspects of Amsterdam in a moment)

Posted by Dean at March 6, 2006 5:08 AM

Comments

True, but on both of your recent grammar posts, there have been problems with spelling!

Posted by: banana at March 6, 2006 10:37 AM

great book.
it's not impossible that the business is owned by a ms. piano.

Posted by: de at March 6, 2006 12:57 PM

We try to work on our spelling problems..If you will educate some of the americans who come here.
Because some are really lost, they tell me how much they like it here in germany or try to impress with german ( that's a big no no to do here).

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