News Exercise #48

This week I’m moving away from news once more, to one of my favourite British TV shows “QI”, hosted by the excellent Stephen Fry.
To make it a little easier, here are the names of the people speaking, from left to right in the studio:

Starting at 31:49, finishing at 33:42

Starting at 31:49, finishing at 33:42
The topic is the “grocer’s apostrophe”, which means the confusion people have about the rules of using the apostrophe.

1)Please watch first without reading 2) below, and try to answer these questions:
a) What was the question posed by Stephen?
b) What was the answer he gave?
c) What was his purpose for asking?
d) Can you type how the shop in Dublin displays its business on its sign? (starting at 32:23)
e) Can you summarize David’s rant about sign-writers? (starting at 33:00)
f) What word did David use during his rant to mean the same as ‘stubbornly’? (at 33:38)

2) If it was difficult (of course it was!), now watch again with these hint words:

Stephen: … It’s “grocer’s apostrophe”…
Rob: …
Stephen: … all conceivably right, … if you care about apostrophes.
David: Well the “grocer’s apostrophe” is supposed to be like…
Stephen:…where they shouldn’t be… like “potato’s”…
Rob: …bother you, does it?
Stephen:…
Rob: …
Stephen: …? Yeah, it bothers some people.
David: It’s not like genocide!
Stephen: … get incredibly annoyed, and they form societies…
Dara: There’s one, actually, in Dublin… “G-R-O-C-E-R-“ and then there’s a comma, and then the “S” …and then gone to a sign-printing company who went, “Yeah, alright, whatever.”
Rob: … one of the requirements… a basic knowledge of where an apostrophe goes.
David: They know… how to spell “accommodation”…  …It’s just every time you see “accommodation” properly painted and misspelled, the sign-writer knew…

Answers:
a) What was the question posed by Stephen?
“Which is correct, of these: Grocer’s, Grocers or Grocers’?”
b) What was the answer he gave?
He said that they were all conceivably correct, meaning each one is correct depending on the situation.
c) What was his purpose for asking?
It was a way of asking if they minded about the problem.
d) Can you type how the shop in Dublin displays its business on its sign?
“Grocer,s”
e) Can you summarize David’s rant about sign-writers?
He said that sign-writers see the customer’s spelling error but don’t tell them, and then they print the sign with the error. The Customer then has to call the sign-writer to come and correct the error at extra cost.
f) What word did David use during his rant to mean the same as ‘stubbornly’?
“Bloody-mindedly”

Stephen: Which is correct, of these: Grocer’s, Grocers or Grocers’ ? It’s “grocer’s apostrophe”. Why does this annoy people?
Rob: They’re all right.
Stephen: Well of course they’re all conceivably right, but it’s just a way of asking if you care about apostrophes.
David: Well the “grocer’s apostrophe” is supposed to be like…
Stephen:…they put them in where they shouldn’t be, supposedly, they put like “potato’s”, and put an apostrophe there, or something.
Rob: This doesn’t bother you, does it?
Stephen: It doesn’t bother me.
Rob: It bothers me.
Stephen: Does it? Yeah, it bothers some people.
David: It’s not like genocide!
Stephen: Some people write books and they get incredibly annoyed, and they form societies for the protection of the apostrophe.
Dara: There’s one, actually, in Dublin – I don’t know if it’s a grocer, but it’s something like that, and it says “G-R-O-C-E-R-“ and then there’s a comma, and then the “S”. And you go, you knew something had to go in there, you knew something had to go in there but you couldn’t… and it looks like a dead apostrophe. But, this guy had printed the sign. He’s obviously written out the sign, and then gone to a sign-printing company who went, “Yeah, alright, whatever.”
Rob: Sign-printing companies, you’d think, one of the requirements of being a sign-printing company is having a basic knowledge of where an apostrophe goes.
David: They know. I’m convinced all sign-writing companies know, for example, how to spell “accommodation”, they must do. I reckon when they say “Ok, we’re doing a sign for your guesthouse; would you like our normal service or would you like our ‘Deluxe, Gold, Five-Times-The-Price’ service, when we’ll check your spelling for you?” And everyone will go, “No, it’s alright, we’re not going to pay five times as much for you to check the spelling,” and they go, “Ok. Ok, we’re going to paint the word ‘accommodation’ the way you’ve put it there, are we?” in the knowledge that they’ll have to get called back all the sooner when the people finally realize they’ve got it wrong. It’s just every time you see “accommodation” properly painted and misspelled, the sign-writer knew; bloody-mindedly put it up there wrong knowing he would get a repeat gig all the time.