Hugh Malcolm wrote,
> It used to be taught that [tha apostrophe] indicated the
> _possessive_ form, that something _belonged_ to the subject of the
> phrase, eg the man's jacket. It also indicated elision where "is"
> was elided as in "What's his name?" = What is his name?
> . . . And, finally, "its" is a possessive like his and hers,
> without any apostrophe, and "it's", as in the previous sentence,
> is an elision of "it is".
That's how I was taught, though I was also told to use apostrophes to
pluralize acronyms, as in "All the UN's in the world can never rob us
of our God-given sovereignty!" It would also be used to pluralize
numbers written as digits, and words consisting of a single letter.
E-mail is primarily a noun. As an abbreviation for "electronic
mail," it is collective, so it wouldn't make sense to pluralize it
or use an article with it. However, it has come to mean "an
electronic mail message" as well, and in that sense can be
pluralized, as in "That damned Fred sent me 136 e-mails in one
week!" I would hyphenate, though I think the hyphen is probably
optional by now. I would not use an apostrophe. It has also come
to be used as a transitive verb and an adjective.
Peter Chapman wrote,
>> I . . . assert that e-mail is an adjective and a verb but not a
>> noun.
I disagree. It started its lexicographical existence as an
abbreviation for "electronnic mail," which is plainly a noun, and I
still think that is its basic meaning.
-- James W. Quinn, Reference Librarian, Gonzaga University School of Law james@gulaw.gonzaga.edu * (509) 484-6092 (voice) * (509) 484-2833 (fax)I like TV music well enough, but it usually contains too much sax and violins for my taste . . . (apologies to David Byrne)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 03/09/00 PST