User:Bilbobee/temp

"I can see the boys cock"
This editor has made several revert's to thi's article, in spite of having it pointed out by several editor's that hi's overuse of apostophe's is both confusing, and gramattically incorrect. The use of an apostrophe, like all punctuation, is functional, and governed by quite clear rules. for example, in answer the the question "What can you see mate?" the answer "I can see the boys cock" can have three quite distint meanings.
 * "I can see some young human males pal" is written "I can see the boys cock"
 * "I can see the penis belonging to a boy" is written "I can see the boy's cock"
 * "I can see a rooster belonging to several young men" is written "I can see the boys' cock"

The humble apostophe serves to identify which of these three possible meanings the writer is trying to convey. It has a purpose:it serves to clarify the meaning, and remove any possible confusion. it is, if you like, an instant disambiguation page

SMC's used in this article totaly reverse this accepted use of an apostrophe, leading to possible confusion. how would you refer to the college's grounds? as SMC'S still? or even, heaven help us, how about the pupils of several colleges? would they be SMC's' students?

We now have a new rule, it seems: " Apostrophe s is used to refer to the possessive and avoid confusion with the plural(except on certain parts of Wikipedia where it means the exact opposite)" does this realy make any sense? What purpose exactly does the apostrophe in the word SMC's (when used as a plural) have? I'm assuming that no one would make such effort to reinstate it it it was purely arbitrary (I've got a " ' " key on my PC, so will damn well use it), which leaves either cosmetic (perhaps it makes the word look prettier), or functional. If functional, then what information does it convey? would the meaning of the phrase be altered (or unclear) if it was not there, as clearly happens in the above examples? or would the meaning, in fact, be more clear without it?