July 18, 2004
Nitpicking language
Words, words, words:
London's Sunday Times Magazine has a great column titled "The best of all possible words". My two favorites from today's issue: "neoteny" (1|2) and "nyctophoniac" (1). Words are taken from this book (apparently only available in the UK).
It is acceptable in American English to use apostrophe+s to indicate plurals of abbreviations, not just possessives of nouns and indefinite pronouns or contractions. Two examples from today's NYT:
"No Wonder C.E.O.'s Love Those Mergers"
"As Smith sang, however, the sadness that flooded his five CD's swamped the room"
It looks very awkward to me.
What is the difference between impudence and insolence?