need help with spelling, is it lot's or lots

KiKi

margaretclare wrote: »

It's often called the greengrocer's apostrophe as in: banana's, potatoe's and so on. Wrong!

Or the greengrocers' apostrophe, even.

ktb

One that threw me recently, was when writing "patients complaints".

In my head the complaints belonged to the patients, so I couldn't work out if a ' was required. However my OH's Mum, who used to be an English teacher advised that it was just a plural with no punctuation. Can someone explain that one to me?

fluffnutter

margaretclare wrote: »

It's often called the greengrocer's apostrophe as in: banana's, potatoe's and so on. Wrong!

Or should that be greengrocers'? Is just one of them illiterate or all of them?

j.e.j.

I used to think it's meant 'belonging to it'. Seemed logical, given that apostrophe s is used to denote possession.

It was only a few years ago that I learned (from a flatmate who taught English as a foreign language) that its (without the apostrophe) is a possessive pronoun and it's means 'it is' or 'it has'..

KiKi

reeree wrote: »

thank you for that it was really helpful, l wonder if you could help with the words thank you, in what context would you use thankyou as apposed to thank you

"Thank you" is when you are effectively saying "I thank you". You have a verb (thank) and a noun (you). You are doing something to someone.

"Thankyou" is a noun, so used when you are referring to it as a 'thing'. For example, "I bought her a thankyou card", "she did a great thankyou speech".

HTH

j.e.j.

ktb wrote: »

One that threw me recently, was when writing "patients complaints".

In my head the complaints belonged to the patients, so I couldn't work out if a ' was required. However my OH's Mum, who used to be an English teacher advised that it was just a plural with no punctuation. Can someone explain that one to me?

oh gosh, getting steeped in grammar now. Is it that 'patients' is just being used like an adjective in that sense?
you could write patients' complaints, as in complaints belonging to (more than one) patient.

KiKi

fluffnutter wrote: »

I think this isn't so clear-cut. I'd probably write "James's house" simply because you tend to voice the second 's' (i.e. you say 'Jameses'). I wouldn't add an extra 's' for words that already end in 's' but aren't voiced, e.g. "Louis' house" (and I'm using the French Louis, not Lewis. If I pronounced 'Louis' as 'Lewis' I would include an extra 's', e.g. "Louis's" because you say the 's' twice, i.e. 'Lewises').

I've not explained that very well....

No, you're right - both are acceptable. You could say James' house or James's house. I'm just lazy and can't be bothered to put the second s in.

Mojisola

ktb wrote: »

One that threw me recently, was when writing "patients complaints".

In my head the complaints belonged to the patients, so I couldn't work out if a ' was required. However my OH's Mum, who used to be an English teacher advised that it was just a plural with no punctuation. Can someone explain that one to me?

It depends on the context. It could be one patient's complaints (one person with several complaints) or many patients' complaints (several patients with several complaints).

BitterAndTwisted

"Patients' complaints". Who else would the complaints belong to? Unless there was only ever a single patient making more than one complaint, and then it would be patient's complaints.

I don't think that English teacher was up to snuff.

KiKi

ktb wrote: »

One that threw me recently, was when writing "patients complaints".

In my head the complaints belonged to the patients, so I couldn't work out if a ' was required. However my OH's Mum, who used to be an English teacher advised that it was just a plural with no punctuation. Can someone explain that one to me?

I get what he's saying, but it would be singular not plural in that case: "patient complaints".

What he's inferring only applies if the word is a singular and ends in an s. Well, I say only, but I can't think of one example where that would apply...!