[Forrest]

is it:

"The entire situation was like a puzzle WHOSE pieces floated indistinctly in a haze of questions"

or


"The entire situation was like a puzzle WHO'S pieces floated indistinctly in a haze of questions"

I can't believe I'm stuck on that! lol

[Artistic Wizard]

You would use the word WHOSE. This is the possessive case of who or which used as an adjective........WHO'S is a contradiction of who is or of who has.......I hope this helps.

[Forrest]

ah, yes. Thank you kindly.:)

[Kirby]

For those really tricky little ones like "(sentence)" - do I use 'practise' or 'practice'?

Or Tblues /Tblue's /Tblues'

I know there are varying levels of grammar ability around, and what is basic to one is not so to another.
I'm not that bad at English, but the two above are the sorts of things I often get caught by!

Maybe a grammar forum with a FAQ? (updated whenever something useful comes up?)

I'm not advocating it as a "Here's my paragraph, check my spelling" place (dictionaries and spell checkers are for that), but rather a forum for those who actively seek to get things right.

Anyway - just thought it might be a useful thing?

i before e except after c, and all that!

[someguy]

Not a bad idea.

If it was in the writing forum, it would quickly get overrun, so a separate forum makes sense....

Maybe, when the grammar issue in question was resolved, the thread would be closed. The Subject lines of the thread would have to be very descriptive to avoid unneccessary duplication.

The hard-headed answer would be that writers should deal with that on their own, but I am not that hard-headed.

I guess the key thing would be how much work was involved in mods renaming the threads, closing them once completed, and then making sure that people dont post the same subject.

Like I said, not a bad idea at all, just a question of how much admin work is invovled for the mods...

[Erebus]

There's no reason why this can't be done in this very thread, in the Writing section. There's no need to keep starting new ones for each query. So, if you have any grammar queries, bring them on and discuss them here. Oh, and in keeping with the writing theme, this thread is now a sticky in the Writing section. :)

To start it off, Forrest's very good query has been merged here as well.

[Holbrook]

Grammar, the bane of my life.

I think this idea is great. Grammar has always been my weakness. I am relearning skills I let slip nearly thirty years ago. (you don't need much grammar when you crunch numbers all day.) I kept enough to draft notes and lettes for typists and left the rest up to them...

Grammar can be a tool to alter the tone of a piece.

This is a skill I want to develop to the full if a can...

[Kirby]

Well, if someone could explain the whys and wherefores of:
Tblues/Tblue's/Tblues' apostrophe and "s", I'd appreciate it!

I know about the "Tblue is" contraction (Tblue's), but say I'm talking about something of mine - Tblue's cat? Is that right?

And how would the other situations of "apostrophe S" apply?
Thanks :)

[Nimea]

Tblue's cat is right.

Tblues would be plural. ;)

And if you would be called Tblues not Tblue, than it would be Tblues' cat. Also, if all the Tblues in the world have one cat it would be Tblues' cat as well.

One more example: Julia's cat, but Jules' cat.

Sorry that I can't explain it, hope you understand it anyway.

[Jacquin]

The apostrophe always goes at the end of the word. If the word is Tblue referring to a singular person named Tblue then it becomes Tblue's cat if however the word is Tblues referring to multiple Tblues (interesting thought....) then it becomes Tblues' cat.

The difficulty occurs when you have a word ending in 's' that refers to a singular item/person such as Chris. Then the apostrophe again goes at the end of the word but you add an s hence Chris's cat. A cat owned by a number of people called Chris however would just be ridiculous...

Confused? I am... :(

Take Care

J