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Assume v. Presume

Trev said:
Can I get one? Or. Please may I have one? How much are they?
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Really???

Hattons of London - Specialists in rare and exclusive coins.

Hattons of London specialists in rare and exclusive coins including world firsts including The 2020 Pre-Decimal 50th Anniversary Gold Sovereign range
hattonsoflondon.co.uk hattonsoflondon.co.uk

It's not exactly a con, but they are trying to bump the price on "rarity value", and there is the pressure-sell "act now because this is a limited-time half-price offer". It's not an offer at all - they are simply threatening to double the price if they have any stock left.

However, if you are really keen on it as a collectors' item, go ahead - just don't imagine it will necessarily keep its value as an investment.
 
Black Hole said:
On an advert for a gold coin commemorating the Apollo 11 mission, they say there have been only 1,969 of them minted so (apparently) "fewer than one in every 13½ thousand UK households may own one".

CAN!

The unwashed need to understand that "may" means "permitted to".
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"Fewer than ... households [are] permitted to own one", would work, and makes sense. It also makes the "con" sound better. You're special because you were permitted to own one.

gomezz said:
If only our last PM had been called Theresa Can. :(
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Theresa Couldn't or Theresa Wouldn't.
 
Black Hole said:
There are frequent examples of "can" being used when it should be "may" (eg: "only food purchased here can be consumed here" - really, I'll demonstrate), but today I've heard the opposite:

On an advert for a gold coin commemorating the Apollo 11 mission, they say there have been only 1,969 of them minted so (apparently) "fewer than one in every 13½ thousand UK households may own one".

CAN!
Click to expand...

May is correct because if two members of the same household separately order a coin they would happily ignore their one per household rule leaving 1 less household able to own a coin.
 
Trev said:
It's "it's" not "its" as "it's" an abbreviated "it is". Just thought I'd play with it a bit.
Ah but when "its" is used as a possessive, it doesn't have an apostrophe. Strange. :frantic:
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Luke said:
'Its' is not just a possessive, it's a possessive pronoun and as such is consistent.
I.e. Neither do his, hers, yours, ours and theirs conventionally include an apostrophe.
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Another way to understand it is that, since "it", "our", etc cannot be pluralised, there can be no confusion between a plural and a possessive therefore no need to differentiate by application of an apostrophe. Thus "it's" is always a contraction, and "its" is always a possessive.
 
But it's not consistent. You don't say "hers leg", or "yours leg" or "theirs leg" or "ours" leg. But you do say "its leg" or "his leg".
Why does the object item (leg) follow the pronoun in the latter group, but would have to precede the pronoun in the first group?
However, if you drop the "s" off the first group, the second group rules apply.
 
The inconsistency between "it is his", "it is hers", "that is his ball", and "that is her ball" had not previously struck me. However, if we adopt the rule that possessive pronouns add a suffix "s" unless (a) the object is specified, or (b) the pronoun already ends in "s", I think we cover it.
 
There is also a gender thing going on here.
Him to His and Her to Hers. WTF.
So as His is obviously an abbreviation of Hims (to be consistent with hers) it should be Hi's :frantic:
 
From the Martin Lewis email this morning;

That's all for this week, but before we go... do you have a blind spot when it comes to speling and grammer? The Apostrophe Protection Society, dedicated too the correct use of the Punctuation Mark, has closed after 18 years, with it's founder stating that less people "are now caring about the correct use of the apostrophe" and that "the ignorance and laziness present in modern times have won". Let us know what misteaks you constantly make in our Grammer Blind Spots Facebook or Twitter posts. PS: Sorry, we couldn't resist the deliberate mistakes here.
 
Des Coleman, weather presenter for Central News, responding to the demise of The Apostrophe Protection Society wanted to know what the plural of fog was and where to place the apostrophe. He started by saying one fog, two fogs. Where, and why, would he want an apostrophe (fog's or fogs'
:eek:
). He had to consult the Met Office (I think) to find out the plural of fog is fog. Argh!
 
My vertantly inaded and I pluralised apostrophe without pluralising is. I'm afraid I cant even blame autocorrect.
 
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