Hi\nAlphas,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Welcome\nto Alphaday 6, Season XVI. Our Alpha-rhythm is moving steadily with its\npowerful beat, sweeping us all along in the flow. Do we need a little break\njust now when we\u2019re fully immersed in what\u2019s going on and waiting impatiently\nfor what follows? Well, we\u2019ll have one anyway. There\u2019s a time for this and a\ntime for that and right now it\u2019s time to join in whatever festivities will\nbrighten up the coming weeks. Solstice, Christmas, The New Year \u2013 a time for\ncelebration and for turning over a new leaf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A\nfour-week break will give us the opportunity to switch off and re-charge our\nenergies to give 2020 and part two of the Alpha Season a fresh and enthusiastic\nstart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\nstill have a packed agenda for Alphaday 6, you\u2019ll be pleased to know, prepared\nfor us with writerly care by everyone and set out here: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alphaday 6, Season\nXVI agenda: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As\nyou can see there\u2019s plenty to look forward to in the course of the day and\nit\u2019ll no doubt keep you occupied for a while until our next Alphaday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n General news:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Firstly,\nI won\u2019t mention the UK election. Secondly, I do hope some action will be taken\nto reduce the ravages of fire, water, gales and earthquakes that threaten to\ndestroy our planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, an altogether different matter caught my\nmyopic, pedantic attention: the demise of the APS! I expect that you, too,\nregret that \u2018The Apostrophe Protection Society\u2019, founded in 2001 by John\nRichards, has ceased to exist. John Richards has accepted defeat: \u201cWe, and our many supporters worldwide, have done our\nbest but the ignorance and laziness present in modern times have won!\u201d A sad\noutcome, indeed. He had one victory before he gave up: he persuaded his local\nlibrary to remove the apostrophe in the notice that read: CD\u2019s. He lost the\nbattle against councils where they stubbornly removed the apostrophe in street\nnames such as \u2018Queens Street\u2019 etc. Even \u2018Earls Court\u2019 refused to use it. He had\na heyday with shops and greengrocers re. tomatoe\u2019s and the like, though. And a\nvaliant battle it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alas! The much-lamented \u201cignorance and laziness\u201d won the day. It\u2019s now up to\nthe rest of us to keep up standards. I\u2019ve heard there\u2019s an apostrophe vigilante\nwho\u2019s bravely roaming through the streets of Bristol at night with a long pole\nequipped with an apostrophe-correcting tool. An admirable effort! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s unite in a firm\nand dedicated effort to use the immensely versatile apostrophe correctly and\nallow it to shine. Unlike other punctuation marks the apostrophe can change the\nmeaning of a phrase completely. Compare \u201cYou\u2019re dead, mate\u201d with \u201cYour dead\nmate\u201d and the difference is obvious (helped along a tiny bit by the comma). Then\nthere are things like \u201cHow many Qs in a game of Scrabble?\u201d No apostrophe\nbecause plurals don\u2019t have them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My personal fad is\nabout reducing auxiliary verbs when the spoken version justifies it. Auxiliary\nverbs are nothing but grammatical markers and need only be written (and spoken)\nas full, separate words when required for the sake of emphasis. I\u2019d never write\n\u2018I would never write\u2019 unless that\u2019s what I\u2019d say out loud. And I wouldn\u2019t, now,\nwould I?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s my final\nselection of apostrophe phrases:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dog\u2019s bark (is loud) <\/p>\n\n\n\n The dogs bark (when they\u2019re excited)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dogs\u2019 bark (can be heard for miles around)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dog\u2019s barking (next door)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dog\u2019s barked (every time I\u2019ve visited)<\/p>\n\n\n\n What d\u2019you think?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Christine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hi Alphas, Welcome to Alphaday 6, Season XVI. Our Alpha-rhythm is moving steadily with its powerful beat, sweeping us all along in the flow. Do we need a little break just now…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alphaday-bulletins","tag-alphaday-bulletins-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}