Where to put apostrophe in "Rock 'N Roll?"
michael.p...@mci.com
apostrophe to appear in phrases like "Rock 'N Roll?" I claim it's
before the N, but a friend (who just copyrighted their company name)
says after the N.
Thanks!
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Thomas Schenk
>
> I have another English question. Where is the proper place for the
> apostrophe to appear in phrases like "Rock 'N Roll?" I claim it's
> before the N, but a friend (who just copyrighted their company name)
> says after the N.
Since the "n" is a contraction of "and", the obvious answer is "rock
'n' roll". This informed conclusion has been duly confirmed by
checking a reliable dictionary--usually not a bad first thought.
Tom
Benjamin Krefetz
> I have another English question. Where is the proper place for the
> apostrophe to appear in phrases like "Rock 'N Roll?" I claim it's
> before the N, but a friend (who just copyrighted their company name)
> says after the N.
It's both. It's properly rock 'n' roll. Since the "'n'" is short for
"and", you need an apostrophe to replace the 'a', and one for the 'd'. (Why
do single quotes and apostrophes have to look the same?)
Interestingly, "shan't", short for "shall not", is only spelled with one
apostrophe these days, though in _Alice in Wonderland_ Dodgson spells it
"sha'n't", which while it looks funny would seem to me to be the more
correct, since it acknowledges the missing ll. Anyone know when the first
apostrophe got dropped?
Ben
Caldew
<kre...@fas.harvard.edu> writes
"Shan't" and "sha'n't" seem to have been contemporaneous. OED2 gives
them as alternatives, and the 1 apostrophe form seems to be as old as
the other. "Shan't" probably won because it was simpler and shorter,
and maybe people thought it more parallel to "won't". Funnily enough,
nobody ever got round to making that "wo'n't". Dodgson certainly
didn't, which means he was as inconsistent as anybody else.
Kir M'Djinn If you haven't anything good to say about anyone, come
and sit by me.
Caldew
<post...@reticulate.net> writes
>Funnily enough,
>nobody ever got round to making that "wo'n't". Dodgson certainly
>didn't, which means he was as inconsistent as anybody else.
>
Correction. Yes, of course he did. I initially checked in an online
version which I'd forgotten had been "corrected". On looking at a
proper version, he did in fact use "wo'n't". OED2 seems to have missed
that, as "wo'n't" isn't in there.
nancy g.
> I have another English question. Where is the proper place for the
> apostrophe to appear in phrases like "Rock 'N Roll?" I claim it's
> before the N, but a friend (who just copyrighted their company name)
> says after the N.
> Thanks!
An apostrophe is used to indicate a missing letter.
Since there are two letters missing in this abbreviation
of the phrase "rock and roll", the correct placement of
the (two) apostrophes would be: rock 'n' roll
Richard Fontana
> I have another English question. Where is the proper place for the
> apostrophe to appear in phrases like "Rock 'N Roll?" I claim it's
> before the N, but a friend (who just copyrighted their company name)
> says after the N.
I believe that the standard spelling for the musical genre is "rock
'n' roll".
RF
Joseph C Fineman
>I have another English question. Where is the proper place for the
>apostrophe to appear in phrases like "Rock 'N Roll?"
I agree with some others on this thread that if there are to be any
apostrophes, there must be two. However, Webster's 10th makes it
"rock and roll", and there is some sense to that. The "and" is
usually reduced in pronouncing common phrases such as "ham and eggs",
"gin and tonic", and "Jack and Jill", but we do not usually feel a
need to represent that fact in spelling.
--- Joe Fineman j...@world.std.com
||: Living too long is more to be dreaded than dying too soon. :||
Robert M. Wilson
Benjamin Krefetz wrote in message <7lg4gp$k5$1...@news.fas.harvard.edu>...
>
[original material deleted)
>Interestingly, "shan't", short for "shall not", is only spelled with one
>apostrophe these days, though in _Alice in Wonderland_ Dodgson spells it
>"sha'n't", which while it looks funny would seem to me to be the more
>correct, since it acknowledges the missing ll. Anyone know when the first
>apostrophe got dropped?
No I don't, but I recall someone who always spelled it that way.
He also insisted on spelling the contraction for influeza as 'flu'.
I have an older Concise Oxford (1951) that has "*flu(e)*: colloq."
and when I was at school I had a teacher who insisted that we spell it *
'flu. *.
Aaron J. Dinkin
<noh...@hotmail.org.nokia.dom> wrote:
> "Shan't" and "sha'n't" seem to have been contemporaneous. OED2 gives
> them as alternatives, and the 1 apostrophe form seems to be as old as
> the other. "Shan't" probably won because it was simpler and shorter,
> and maybe people thought it more parallel to "won't". Funnily enough,
> nobody ever got round to making that "wo'n't". Dodgson certainly
> didn't, which means he was as inconsistent as anybody else.
Really? My copy of _Through the Looking Glass_ (I can't find a date on it
anywhere, but it's "designed and produced by the Domesday Press, Inc., New
York for Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York -
London") uses not only "sha'n't" but also "wo'n't" and even "ca'n't":
"'You wo'n't make yourself a bit realler by crying,' Tweedledee remarked"
(p. 39)
"'You ca'n't possibly do that,' said the Rose" (p. 19)
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom
Benjamin Krefetz
> michael.p...@mci.com writes:
>>I have another English question. Where is the proper place for the
>>apostrophe to appear in phrases like "Rock 'N Roll?"
> I agree with some others on this thread that if there are to be any
> apostrophes, there must be two. However, Webster's 10th makes it
> "rock and roll", and there is some sense to that. The "and" is
> usually reduced in pronouncing common phrases such as "ham and eggs",
> "gin and tonic", and "Jack and Jill", but we do not usually feel a
> need to represent that fact in spelling.
If you look on the next page, however, it does accept "rock 'n' roll" as a
variant of "rock and roll".
Ben
Bertel Lund Hansen
>An apostrophe is used to indicate a missing letter.
>Since there are two letters missing in this abbreviation
>of the phrase "rock and roll", the correct placement of
>the (two) apostrophes would be: rock 'n' roll
Then I see no reason to replace anything. I thought the replacing
was meant to make things easier.
I haven't really noticed how "rock'n roll" was spelled in the
texts I've seen, but that is how I'd spell it, parallel to can't,
won't a.s.o. One doesn't say " rock 'n", one says " rock'n".
Maybe one should simply adopt rock&roll?
Bertel
--
Denmark, Europe
http://home6.inet.tele.dk/blh/ (in Danish only)
Lee Rudolph
>michael.p...@mci.com spewed forth:
>> I have another English question. Where is the proper place for the
>> apostrophe to appear in phrases like "Rock 'N Roll?" I claim it's
>> before the N, but a friend (who just copyrighted their company name)
>> says after the N.
>> Thanks!
>
>It's both. It's properly rock 'n' roll. Since the "'n'" is short for
>"and", you need an apostrophe to replace the 'a', and one for the 'd'.
One of the nicest bits of logocraft it's been my pleasure to see in the
last few years is that for Cleveland, Ohio's ROCKaNdROLL Hall of Fame:
I've attempted to suggest the effect with CAPS and lowercase, but they
of course achieve it rather more subtly.
Lee Rudolph
Harald Manninga
> nancy g. skrev:
>
> >An apostrophe is used to indicate a missing letter.
[snip]
> Then I see no reason to replace anything. I thought the
> replacing was meant to make things easier.
[']
> Maybe one should simply adopt rock&roll?
You'd be sure to have somebody say: "'Rock ampersand roll?' Just doesn't
sound right!"
Harry
(ducking...)