Bachmann 108's question

Yes, quite!

Just realise I've posted an inappropriate ' in the header. Sorry.

:-)

Matter of opinion. ' often demotes 'multiple of' whereas 108s could be misread as 108-S

DC Kits make two versions of the 108, one of which is described as eastern region.

(kim)

"kim" wrote

Depends upon the meaning. 108's could be interpreted to be an abbreviation for 108 dmus, whereas 108s would imply more than one 108. In much the same way that loco's can legitimately be punctuated in that way, being an abbreviation for locomotives.

John.

Hmm, that sounds promising.

Anyone else know which (if any) East Anglian routes they worked?

The ER 108s were of the first batch, and all were delivered from new to the North East, usually to such depots as Darlington, South Gosforth, Hammerton Street, Hull BG etc, before ending up at Heaton. ICBW but I believe none worked to East Anglia.

"Loco" and "dmu" or "DMU" are already abbreviations. Adding 's is incorrect, unless it denotes the possessive.

"MartinS" wrote

Loco's is the *correct* form of abbreviation of the word locomotives. Just because the use of the apostrophe has fallen out of general use *in that context* doesn't make it wrong.

That (correct) form of punctuation is highlighted in the correct spelling of ha'p'orth or half penny - again sadly fallen into disuse following decimalisation of our currency in the early 1970s.

John.

Like half the population I received a copy of "Eats, shoots and leaves" last Christmas. According to that it is justified to denote with apostrophe+s the plural of certain words even when they are not abbreviations. These are words that end with a vowel, typically "o".

Thus the plural of "logo" (meaning a trade mark) would be "logo's" to make clear that it is pronounced "log-oze" and to distinguish it from "logos" which is the Greek word for "word" used in English in a theological context, which would be pronounced "log-oss".

(Strictly, I believe "logo's " would also be justified because "logo" is an abbreviation of "logotype" - but let's put that aside for the sake of the illustration.)

Andy Kirkham Glasgow

"Andy Kirkham" wrote

The use of an apostrophe in those circumstances is purely to denote the omission of certain letters in the abbreviated form of the word. It has nothing to do with pronunciation. Technically logotype should be abbreviated to logo'.

John.

"John Turner" wrote

Actually I think it's abbreviation should be indicated by a full stop rather than an apostrophe. The following should indicate what I mean:

W. H. Smith & Co. Ltd..

W. and H. are abbreviations, as is Co. and Ltd., consequently they should be rounded off with a full stop.

John.

The apostrophe indicating possession is already indicating an abbreviation as in "Johnes Trains". (John's trains) The full stop only gets used to indicate an abbreviation at the end of a word or name.

Regards, Greg.P.

In news:ctr79j$j8l$ snipped-for-privacy@newsreaderg1.core.theplanet.net, John Turner blithered:

Agreed but I don't think you're supposed to duplicate the full stop, probably .! & .? are not allowed neither but ., as you have used is O.K.

"GbH" wrote

I think you're maybe partly right. The second full stop would correctly indicate the end of a sentence. So in the following context it would be correct.

"The bookstall on the station is operated by W. H. Smith & Co. Ltd.."

In the context I used it earlier, just stating the company name would not constitute a sentence.

I'm not quite sure whether technically there should be a comma after Smith. Anyone comment?

John.

No. And no double full-stop.

Many abbreviations and acronyms are commonly used without full stops, e.g., laser, loco, USA, UK.

Canada Post discourages the use of any punctuation in addressing mail, and recommends capital letters, so that it can be read with OCR equipment, thus: W H SMITH & CO LTD

"MartinS" wrote

My old English teach would have castrated you for such heresay.

Indeed, but that doesn't make them correct.

That's because computers can't read properly punctuated English as readily as nurd-speak.

John.

Couldn't you lot just answer the question ;-)

In news:HeqMd.459$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe2-win.ntli.net, Richard Spanton blithered:

There was a question?

"Richard Spanton" wrote

What question?

Incidentally your posting was incorrectly punctuated; there should be a full stop before your smiley. :-)

John.

No, there should have been a question mark. ;-)