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Aaaaah! This brings me out in a hot flush. I want to become an apostrovigilante, only I'm scared.

[PerHaps-WE...nEEd+tO_OVERcompensate*IN'tHe=ComMentS|IN{order~TO}reDRESS(the BALaNCE)?]

Rabbits die
Rabbit's die.

Means two completely different things, sounds exactly the same, without punctuation would be written the same.

Can (someone) please explain the seemingly (new) practice of putting (words) in brackets which are (essential) to the proper (construction) and legibility of (sentences) as if they were (not) put(there) by the original (author) of the (sentence) or as if the bracketed (words) do not (belong) there?
It's really (annoying) me as it is becoming (more) and (more) prevelant in (newspapers) and online (articles)
I appreciate that the foregoing may annoy you but I have (bracketed) words merely for (effect)

Personally I think are stealth punctuation. They're there, but nicely hidden away unless you hover your cursor over them. i.e. yes, you cheated!

What Is Really Interesting Is That In Excluding Punctuation You Omitted All Initial Capital Letters At The Beginning Of What Would Have Been Sentences I'm Not Sure Capitals Count As Punctuation I Remember Being Taught At School About Full Stops And Capital Letters FSCL But Arent The Capitals Just A Consequence Of The Punctuation The Full Stops

how very e e cummings

Now Paper Monitor is getting adventurous, who's expecting tomorrow's Paper Monitor to be written entirely in txt spk?

Following on from #4 and #6, I think once the discussion is finished here; We Need To Come Up wth the (perfect) sentance whats got all hour pet Peeves innit!!!

Can you understand what's been written in today's Paper Monitor?
Yes.

Was there any punctuation?
No.

Is punctuation necessary for comprehension?
No.

Therefore, is punctuation an important part of our written language?
Not really, no.

Don't make such a big fuss over something so trivial.

The thing that bugs me the most (and ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳, you're guilty of this) is when something belonging to someone is typed as, say, James's when we all know that it is written James' just pronounced as James's... if we are to start typing everything phonetically then this could get very long-winded.

And I'm all for, correct, puntuation. We have to have standards of some sort.

Hmm #9 scuzzy983...

Can you understand what's been written in today's Paper Monitor?
Yes - but it took longer to read and fully comprehend. I bet it took longer to write also, needing to double-check for unintended double meanings etc.

Was there any punctuation?
No, I'll agree with that one, ignoring hyperlinkery

Is punctuation necessary for comprehension?
No - in this case. Plenty of other examples could be found where this wouldn't unambiguously be true.

Therefore, is punctuation an important part of our written language?
Definitely - but not to the extent of over-zealous pedantry. If it's not important, why did you use it in your post? :) (sorry, a little emotipunctuation there)

Don't make such a big fuss over something so trivial.
Didn't know we were - seemed mainly a light-hearted conversation in the spirit of the original article.

No. 10 - James's is correct. You only ommit the s when the word is a plural so James' could only be used if there was something belonging to more than one James.

I like to write "photo's" as this tricks most pedants. You can then explain that it is an abbreviation of photographs.

We should all purchase these:

Nice one Jamie! Of course for the really perverse, those stickers can be used for both purposes. You can go around sticking random apostrophes on valid signs to annoy pedants. Equally pedants can go around adding missing apostrophes onto errant signs to help reduce their blood pressure.

Of course you can also use the waste material around the stickers to good effect - if it's a white sign you can cover over existing apostrophes by tearing off bits.

#12 shiveringphilmk: Either usage (James' or James's) is acceptable. The recommendation in Fowler's Modern English Usage is that the trailing 's' is omitted in words where the final sound is a hard 's', pronounced as 'z', such as James, Jesus, Moses, etc.

I'll get my coat...

i cant help feeling that for this to have been a true test of our ability to read without any form of punctuation or imposed pauses paper monitor ought also to have forgone line breaks such that there was no way to enforce a sentence end on any reader

ofcoursethistheorytakentoitslogicalconclusionwouldalsodispensewithspaces

Of course then there's the famous paragraph that went round inboxes a few years back. Let's have a Ppaer Mnotoir in this style...

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrdige Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.

surelyspacesarepunctuationsoyourentryshouldhavebeenwrittenlikethis
Lynn Truss has a poor explanation of the 's and this leads to the mistake of shiveringphilmk -"You only ommit (sic) the s when the word is a plural".
Possession can be denoted by writing 's in all cases i.e. the s is an integral part of showing possession. When pronouncing a possessive noun ending in s (whether singular -James's - or plural -babies's) we do not need to enunciate the final s.
Could someone please explain how to write and pronounce the result of the two men called Moses possessing anything?

#9 - of course punctuation is necessary. Consider the following:

A woman without her man is useless.

Some may consider that this sentence is suitably punctuated, but others may argue that it should be appended thusly:

A woman: without her, man is useless.

The colon and comma make quite a lot of difference!

Ju'st a's a 'sugge'stion, maybe to en'sure we don't mi's's any apo'strophe's (and thu's incur the wrath of tunbridge well's re'sident's), we 'should add one before every in'stance of the letter 's in a 'sentence.

And on another note:
Why does Earl's Court station have an apostrophe in its name, but Barons Court doesn't?