Bull's Eye Business Writing Tips

Tip #433:  Apostrophes: 

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Tip #433:  Apostrophes:  The apostrophe is used to show possession, to mark the omission of letters, and sometimes to indicate the plural of Arabic numbers, letters, and acronyms.  Do not confuse the apostrophe used to show the plural with the apostrophe used to show possession.

For example:

The entry required five 7’s in the provided columns.  (The apostrophe here is used to indicate the plural, not possession.)

The letter’s purpose was evident in the opening paragraph. The apostrophe here is used to show possession, not plurality.)

Weekly Exercise:

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This week’s quiz:

Please correct the following sentences by adding apostrophes where needed:

  1. Paul Jones test results are in the office.
  2. Its important that the sales force meet its quota.
  3. An actress career can be very short.
  4. The decision is yours and mine.

Reader's Comments:

Dmitry Denisov commented about Tip # 431:  I am very disappointed to see that you are claiming with no doubt, no explanation, and no proof that past participle of "prove" is "proved", and implying that The Washington Post made an error. All dictionaries I've seen (dictionary.com, m-w.com to name a few) give both variations: "proved" and "proven".  To make things even worse, in the next writing tips #432 you claim "we do not need the past participle form of 'prove.'" If it is not past participle, then what it is? Present Perfect Tense does require past participle. Here is an actual explanation that BOTH VARIATIONS ARE USED from Merriam-Webster (http://m-w.com/dictionary/prove).

"The past participle proven, originally the past participle of prove, a Middle English variant of prove that survived in Scotland, has gradually worked its way into standard English over the past three and a half centuries. It seems to have first become established in legal use and to have come only slowly into literary use. Tennyson was one of its earliest frequent users, probably for metrical reasons. It was disapproved by 19th century grammarians, one of whom included it in a list of "words that are not words." Surveys made some 50 or 60 years ago indicated that proved was about four times as frequent as proven. But our evidence from the last 30 or 35 years shows this no longer to be the case. As a past participle proven is now about as frequent as proved in all contexts. As an attributive adjective <proved or proven gas reserves> proven is much more common than proved." I expect an official apology and explanation of this issue in further releases of writing-tips.

My comment:  I can only tell you what I have read by a professional writer, James Fitzpatrick, who is a syndicated writer.  I am sorry that I offended you.  Perhaps some of our other readers have more knowledge about this than I do.

Readers, please comment about the use of “prove” or “proven.”

Quote of the week:

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”  (Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1945)

I suggest you read a book that has been around for many years, but it still has some good advice—How To Overcome Failure and Achieve Success—by Napoleon Hill.  This book has some great advice for leadership skills.

Answer to this week's exercise:

  1. Paul Jones’ test results are in the office.
  2. It’s important that the sales force meet its quota.
  3. An actress’ (or actress’s) career can be very short.
  4. The decision is yours and mine.

To send the above exercise answers to Gloria for her comments and review,  copy the questions,  paste  them into an email, answer them,  and send to Marsha@basic-learning.com.

 

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Here are some books on business writing that I recommend.

Bull's Eye Business Writing is also available from Amazon.com.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, author, Lynne Truss The Everything Resume Book by Steven Graber
On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction , by William Knowlton Zinsser  The Gregg Reference Manual, by William A. Sabin 
The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, White, E. B. White  How to Take the Fog Out of Business Writing, by Robert Gunning, Richard A. Kallan (Contributor) 

More books on business writing and other business subjects  (available from Amazon.com). 

Contact Gloria Pincu at Basic Learning Systems, Inc.

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