We went to the temple yesterday to finish our last collection of initiatories. Yay! What an experience that was, and now we can focus on the endowments and sealings.
While we driving through Cardston, I saw a sign on someone?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s house that attempted to say who lived there. I do not remember the last name, but let us just use Leavitt. That is a good LDS name.
Naturally, when one wants to say there is more than one Leavitt, one would pluralise ?¢‚Ǩ?ìLeavitt?¢‚Ǩ¬ù, which would give you ?¢‚Ǩ?ìLeavitts?¢‚Ǩ¬ù. However, this sign I saw actually said ?¢‚Ǩ?ìLeavitt?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s?¢‚Ǩ¬ù. Now depending on the intent of the message the sign was to present, it may be grammatically correct. Such a label would in effect mean that the house belonged to one Leavitt.
However, since this phenomenon seems to be widespread and I have ?¢‚Ǩ?ìdebated?¢‚Ǩ¬ù this issue on more than one occasion, I can only assume that the intent of the sign was to say that Leavitts?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùmore than one?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùlive in this house.
Why is it that people simply cannot use basic grammar when they are displaying their language skills to the world? What really gets me is that not only do the owners of the sign participate in this linguistic debauchery, but so do the sign designers and makers.
Sigh. Just another one of my pet peeves.
