Common English Blunders

“INVESTIGATIVE SERVICES UNIT & APPEAL’S”

Apostrophes, Common English Blunders, Nouns, Possessives

I saw this yesterday on a San Quentin State Prison sign shown during an MSNBC television program.

Problem:
A possessive apostrophe appears where it should not.

Explanation:
“APPEAL’S” of what?

The apostrophe in “APPEAL’S” should not be there.

The sign maker was trying to refer to the plural of the noun “APPEAL”.

He or she instead made the sign maker’s common blunder of inserting a possessive apostrophe when pluralizing a noun.

Maybe sign makers just love to create apostrophes?

Solution:
“INVESTIGATIVE SERVICES UNIT & APPEALS”

“Invite” vs. “Invitation”

Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Nouns, Verbs, Versus

I increasingly hear “invite” where “invitation” is required.

Problem:
The word “invite” is not a noun.

Explanation:
Sentences such as “I’ll send you an invite.” or “Could she send them an invite?” drive me crazy.

How lazy can one be?!

The word “invite” is a verb, not a noun.

We have a perfectly good noun for what is intended: “invitation”.

I believe that this growing tendency to use “invite” where “invitation” is required is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis.

It’s simpler to say or write the two-syllable “invite” than the four-syllable “invitation”.

Solution:
Use “invite” when you need a verb; use “invitation” when you need a noun.

“150,000 net video adds in first quarter”

Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Nouns, Verbs

I saw this in a corporate announcement yesterday.

Problem:
The word “adds” is not a noun.

Explanation:
This phrase appeared in a sentence talking about how a company’s net increase in video customers was expected to be 150,000 in the first quarter of 2008.

Unfortunately, one could misread this as “150,000 net video ads in first quarter” — as in “150,000 net [Internet?] video advertisements in first quarter”.

In other words, one could misread “adds” as “ads” and believe that the writer was referring to advertisements.

More important than this possible misreading is the fact that “adds” is a verb, not a noun.

I believe that this growing tendency to use “adds” where “additions” is what is meant is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis.

It’s simpler to say or write the one-syllable “adds” than the three-syllable “additions”.

One could say the same thing about “installs” versus “installations”, about which I wrote last December.

Solution:
“150,000 net video [customer] additions in first quarter”