"Mizter T" wrote
Those are indeed my words from June '05. I do very much hope that you
haven't been silently brewing over my apostophe faux-pas for the past
year, and instead came across the aforementioned text by using a Google
search of the utl archives ;-)

(The erroneous "has" in my post about Sudbury Hill Harrow appears to be
an artifact unintentionally left over from my first draft.)

No, I've been neither 'brewing' or brooding, and yes, I did a Google search
(on uk.r rather than utl). I thought there was a more recent example, but I
couldn't find it. In retrospect, I would perhaps have been better having a
go at one of the many others who insist on putting apostrophes in the
possessive "its", as in other respects your syntax, spelling and grammar are
exemplary. I'm just turning a bit grumpy in my old age, possibly as a
result of spending too much time reading messages on Usenet.

John Salmon wrote:

"Mizter T" wrote
Those are indeed my words from June '05. I do very much hope that you
haven't been silently brewing over my apostophe faux-pas for the past
year, and instead came across the aforementioned text by using a Google
search of the utl archives ;-)

(The erroneous "has" in my post about Sudbury Hill Harrow appears to be
an artifact unintentionally left over from my first draft.)

No, I've been neither 'brewing' or brooding, and yes, I did a Google search
(on uk.r rather than utl). I thought there was a more recent example, but I
couldn't find it. In retrospect, I would perhaps have been better having a
go at one of the many others who insist on putting apostrophes in the
possessive "its", as in other respects your syntax, spelling and grammar are
exemplary. I'm just turning a bit grumpy in my old age, possibly as a
result of spending too much time reading messages on Usenet.


I was composing my other post (specifically the reply to myself - a
great example of netiquette, not!) when you posted the above, which I
guess I wouldn't have sent off if I'd read it first.

It's fine - I've no desire to join in on the old tradition of having a
usenet feud, there's enough of those already, which is a shame as it's
not a great use of one's energies. I'll leave the feuding to Mr
Livingstone and the Chief Executive of Metronet.

R.C. Payne wrote:
Mizter T wrote:
Like the sub-surface Underground lines, my unneccesary apostrophe
filter appears to be suffering from poor performance because of the
heat. I shall take the advice of the Tube station posters and drink
some water before I continue my journey on usenet.

It could be argued that words endin in -co as an abreviation for company
could legitmately be made plural by co's as a contraction of companies.
Of course if you were doing that, you should probably write it infra'co's.

Robin

infra'co's would probably not be necessary as I think the one apostrophe
can imply the others[1] but I suspect you would have to write to
singular as infraco' in order to get away with it.

[1] For instance I have seen 'fridge for refrigerator but have never
seen 'fridge'

--
Each day a man watched a donkey walk past a high wood fence with one
plank removed. First he saw the nose, then the ears, then the neck,
forequarters, back and finally the tail. He pondered this for a time
and eventually declared. “I understand now. The nose causes the tail”