Howdy!

A few things have been on my mind since I last blogged, being a very sharing person I feel the need to share this with you.

I recently had a conversation with our webmaster regarding the Apostrophe, that's one of these ' for those of you who don't know! It's been a long time since I left school and it's very likely that I have (or I've) become a tad lazy when it comes to using the correct grammar. I also blame the fact that so many people use text speak alot, infact there was that piece in the news recently which said how new mothers (probably chavs) were naming their children things like "An" instead of "Anne" and "Lora" instead of "Laura", how lazy is that!?

Now, I worry about things like this and have been looking into some common misuses of the apostrophe in order to attempt to use them correctly and maybe to make a few others realise where they should be and where they shouldn't be, maybe this will make webbys job a little easier as I know he's a busy man!

I know that they are used to denote a missing letter or letters such as "I can't" instead of "I cannot" and "it's" instead of "it is". They are also used to denote possession, for example:
"the cat's bowl" and "Jones's bakery" (but, it would be "Joneses' bakery" if it was owned by more than one Jones!).

Are you with me so far? Good. I'm reliabily informed that I make the mistake of adding an apostrophe when I don't need to, for example "Menu's printed to order" should read "Menus printed to order" and "Banana's for sale" should be "Bananas for sale". How was I supposed to know that apostrophes arn't used to denote plurals!? Even "CD's" shouldn't have an apostrophe and should just be "CDs"!

Now, you can call me thick, stupid or whatever you like, but I've always been a bit unsure about this. To be honest, I don't even remember this being mentioned at School, maybe that's because I was to busy flicking pieces of paper at the girls and being sent out to stand in the corridor! It may even have been down to the fact that we had several different English teachers whilst I was in High School. The first one, Miss Shirra had a nervous breakdown and the second, Mrs. Brookes-Mills (who we called Mrs. Brookes-Smells!) seemed to want to be one of the gang rather than teach us anything! I remember her flirting with the boys more than doingher job! Anyway, I'm told she got sacked in the end!

Anyway, back to grammar. Once I've conquered the way of the apostrophe, all I will have to worry about is those dam commas and my spelling!

I'm sure I'll be ranting more about this on Sunday, as well as giving you the chance to win stuff and chatting to my guest Ronson Kiplin. Tune in this Sunday between 2-6pm on 105.3 FM or just click "Listen Live" at the top of the page to hear Seaside FM online.

Until then, have a good few days.
Mike