Find the Error 29
(Extract adapted from a leaflet distributed at a Further Education
college in the Midlands)
What kind of mistake do you see? (Choose one:)
- apostrophes
- articles
- doesn't make sense
- punctuation
- singular / plural
- spelling
Answer: apostrophes
In this example, there should be an apostrophe after 'women' to indicate
possession, because the 'clothes sale' belongs to, or is related to the
'women'. The sentence should read: 'WOMEN'S CLOTHES SALE'. 'Women'
is a plural word, meaning more than one woman, so we can assume that the
sale features clothes that are suitable for more than one woman. The word
'women' is already plural (despite not having an 's' at the end), so there is no
such word as 'womens'. 'Womens' is not plural of the word 'woman'. It is a
made up word. It is clear that the author meant 'womens' as 'women' plus
possessive apostrophe 's'. They just forgot to use the apostrophe.
Click here to download this page as a free .PDF worksheet
|
