Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Paul sayed thise wize wurdz: Anyone want to come up with two Portuguese words that have made it into English unchanged? Hint: both entered the English lexicon in the 17th century in colonial days.

Yippee! Etymology is fun I can think of more than two. My favorite is "orange" after the Chinese (Cathay) import named by the Portuguese, from the days following the Treaty of Tordesillas, which gave Portugal the eastern hemisphere and Spain the western hemisphere, and suddenly withering after Philip II took the throne of Portugal in 1580 and promptly mismanaged and neglected the colonies into ruin. Here follows those that come to mind:

Orange (from above)
Albino
Banana
Cachalot
Carnauba
China
Cobra
Flamingo
Guinea
Maraca
Negro
Piranha
Samba
Tapioca
Zebra
Dodo (was Doudo, then Portuguese borrowed it back from English and is now again dodô)

Well done, Paul! You've (note) hit upon my pet hate! I've (note) posted a few times here on the inappropriate use of apostrophes....... it drives me bonkers!!

There's (note) a store near my workplace that has its (note) wares plastered all over the windows - "TV's, HiFi's, DVD's and CD's"........ aaaarrrggghhhh!!!!

And a brick display centre that boasts "Great idea's for your home"......... double aaaarrrggghhh!!!!!

http://www.esf.edu/writingprogram/tipsheets/apostrophe.htm

Great idea's for your home = Great idea is for your home. Hmmm... makes sense or not?

Howard: What's wrong with "TV's, HiFi's, DVD's and CD's"? Looks fine to me. Your reference also says it's proper to add 's to create the pural form of a noun that does not end in s. Am I missing something?

Doesn't make sense to me at all, Sheena..... I read it as "great ideas" - plural - and that's what the sign indicates.

Randy: Maybe things have changed since I was at school but with the exception of abbreviations (usually dropping the 'i' as in there's, it's, here's), suffixing a noun with 's made it a possessive noun, so my natural question is "TV's what"..... does it own something?

And yes, the reference does point out that it's proper to use apostrophes when pluralizing so I guess I'm just old school here...... I would be using "TVs, CDs, DVDs, etc." Having said that, "HiFis" looks crazy, doesn't it?

OK... from now on for me it's going to be "televisions", "compact discs", "digital video discs" and "high fidelity systems" (not hi).

TV's, hi-fi's like in "Trader Joe's" - could that be the possible reason why the apostrophe got in there? Okay, i know you don't buy some traders named Joe at Trader Joe's...

I think "Trader Joe's" is fine...... it's like me saying "I'm going to Sheena's this weekend". There's an assumed word at the end like "store", "home", "place", etc.

It's like "Trader Joe's" (place) (store), etc.

Like Rocky's (bar)...the apostrophe ess shows possession.

Sheena, the reference to "soviet jewelry" is from Saturday night Live, second season. Gilda Radner was Mrs. Emily Litella, who never understood anything properly the first time, and came up with long rants based upon her misunderstanding of a simple phrase.

TV's cabinet...hi fi's power cord. All possessive, but NOT plurals.

Elys, neither of my two words is on your long, dictionary list.

"Oh, that's very different.... never mind."

As quoted from Wikipedia - shouldn't it be thats?

My guess - Corvette Indys

Nope. That is different (contraction), becomes "that's". The apostrophe replaces the missing letter.

Corvette Indys is correct, though clumsy to write and read.

Indys would be the plural that makes sense in the context of a car proper name. Indies follows the rule, but you loose the identity of the car model name.

That's - yeah, what was I (not) thinking of?! I try very hard to be correct in what I type, how'd I miss that one? Sheesh.

I think all apostrophes are essentially for contractions. I've always believed the origin means "his" as in "it belongs to John" and "John" + "his" = "John's". And of course this would be a sexist thing.

I must investigate this...

Then why am I a crisis? Cris is = Crisis not Cris's or even Cris'. In light of my life, I guess it is considered a crisis to some, but hey, it's my life.

Then, politically correct, should it be "Sheena'r"? Hmmm.