English question...

[ravi]

joanna bujes wrote:
> This is soooo embarrasing...
> 
> Starting in the mid eighties, I started to notice that a large
> percentage of my students confused the genitive with the plural ending:
> "Her parent's went to church. The grandmothers pies were the best." etc.
> 
> I could not figure out how exactly the collective American mind had
> short-circuited into this stuff, but the evidence was there before me
> every time I graded a paper.
> 
> Now, I'm doing it. So, all you current/former English teachers and
> editors: is it EVER correct to specify a plural ending with an 's???
> 
> I see this in technical writing ALL the time: "To broadcast a message,
> specify a list of url's for the destinations."
> 

i am quite guilty of this stuff myself, so here's my defense: there is a
bit of a difference isn't there between "her parent's went to church"
and "the cisco's are down again". the former mistake (because i do not
do it ;-)) is eggregious. the latter is a result of satisfying both
laziness and readability. "the ciscos are down again" is a bit difficult
to parse. i should write "the cisco routers are down again", but being
too lazy to do that, i instead opt for adding the incorrect apostrophe
in the interest of readability.

i did come across something on the net quite a few years ago that
excused this usage... let me search...

	--ravi