Definition and Examples of the Greengrocers Apostrophe

Definition and Examples of the Greengrocers Apostrophe Greengrocers apostrophe is an informal term in British English for the nonstandard use of an apostrophe before the final -s in the plural form of a word. Examples and Observations There was formerly a respectable tradition (17c - 19c) of using the apostrophe for noun plurals, especially in loanwords ending in a vowel (as in We doe confess Erratas, Leonard Lichfield, 1641, and Commas are used, Phillip Luckcombe, 1771) and in consonants s, z, ch, sh (as in waltzs and cotillions, Washington Irving, 1804). Although this practice is rare in 20th c. standard usage, the apostrophe of plurality continues in . . . the nonstandard (illiterate) use often called in BrE the greengrocers apostrophe, as in apples 55p per lb and We sell the original shepherds pies (notice in a shop window, Canterbury, England).(Tom McArthur, The Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford University. Press, 1992) The ubiquity of apostrophes to signal the plural of fruits and vegetablesas in Carrots, Bananas, and (gasp!) Peacheshas created the term, at least in England, the greengrocers apostrophe. The worst offender found by John Richard and the Apostrophe Protection Society: Golden Deli-cious.Greengrocers, butchers, and supermarket managers have received polite notes from the Apostrophe Protection Society reminding them of the differences between plural and possessive nouns. Among the targets of polite letters that the APS has sent was a local cafe that serves Chips, Sausages, Rolls, Eggs, and every other foodstuff with a garnishing of apostrophe. But the establishment calls itself Bennys Cafe.(Richard Lederer and John Shore, Comma Sense: A Fun-damental Guide to Punctuation. St. Martins Press, 2005) The greengrocers apostrophewhere a simple plural is turned into a singular possessiveis probably the main cause of distress for the many people who would like punctuation to be used properly. It is so public that it encourages even more wrong use.(Christine Sinclair, Grammar: A Friendly Approach. Open University Press, 2007) The Restaurant Apostrophe We could just as well call this misuse of the apostrophe to create a plural noun the restaurant apostrophe, for it appears on countless menusoften miswritten menuseven in chichi establishments. The menu of an Italian restaurant in my neighborhood has some especially outrageous specimens: pizzas, pastas, appetizers, soup salads, and lunch specials. You can even order a pizza with sauteed onions. . . .The grocers or restaurant apostrophe also occurs in the curious way some people have of pluralizing their surname. They write the Simpsons or sometimes the Simpsons when all they need to do is say Doh! and write the Simpsons. (Of course, if a plural possessive is involved, a terminal apostrophe is required: the Simpsons house.)(Charles Harrington Elster, The Accidents of Style: Good Advice on How Not to Write Badly. St. Martins Press, 2010) An Atrocity? Think of the word atrocity, and certain appalling behaviours spring to mind. Add barbaric, and the picture gets worse. How about a barbaric atrocity thats detestable and provokes horror? At this point, its surely time for a UN intervention. We must act to halt this outrage! Except that all the words just quoted come from discussions of the uses and abuses of English. Simon Heffer, in his recent book Strictly English, thinks the so-called greengrocers apostrophe is an atrocity, and that academics write barbarically . . ..Anger delivers ego-enhancing pleasure; so does strengthening the boundaries of group membershipand carping about language is far more socially acceptable than explicit class snobbery or nationalism (not to mention less bother than confronting actual atrocities). Still, can we get, sorry, may we have, a bit of perspective, please? (Oliver Burkeman, Why Do They Adopt an Error-Hunting Mindset? The Guardian, Dec. 16, 2011) The Demise of the Apostrophe? In our period . . . came the arbitrary codification of its and whose without apostrophe as the genitives of it and who, respectively, and its, whos with apostrophe as the contraction of it, who with is or has. It is hardly surprising that these conventions seem to be in rapid collapse, with what has been called the greengrocers apostrophe (apples 60p, Antiques, linguistics, and perhaps even meant, all personally attested) just one symptom of what may well turn out to be the imminent demise of the apostrophe. Distressing though it is to purists, it must be admitted that genuine ambiguities caused by omission or misuse of the apostrophe are very infrequent indeed. (David Denison, Syntax. The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume 4, ed. by Suzanne Romaine. Cabridge University Press, 1998)

A SWOT Analysis of Nike, Inc.

A SWOT Analysis of Nike, Inc. Internal: Strengths The first strength of Nike as a company is that is outsources all aspects of its production to overseas facilities. This is a strength as the company saves money on the labor costs and the helps the company focus on design and research with the additional capital they save. The next strength is that Nike is a globally recognized brand that has strong customer loyalty. Along with this, Nike has a reputation for quality and endurance which makes it the brand of choice for athletes and fitness fanatics. Another strength of Nike is that it is an extremely competitive company with a catchy slogan that summarizes the ideology of the company. â€Å"Just Do It† is globally known and contributes as to why Nike is one of the few dominating companies in the market. Weaknesses The first weakness of Nike as a company is it perceived by some people as too premium and expensive. This is a weakness as a lot of people are migrating to lower prices athletic wear which is primarily focused on quality. The next weakness is that Nike does its business through retailers who sell other competing brands. This kills the exclusivity of the brand as it is often competing against hundreds of other brands who beat Nike in some aspects including price or quality. As mentioned previously, Nike outsources all of its manufacturing to save money. A lot of companies who outsource overseas are faced with negative publicity due to the bad image of â€Å"Sweatshops†. This could turn people off shopping at Nike due to unfriendly conditions that are associated with sweatshops. Opportunities One of the biggest opportunities for Nike is the emerging markets in regards to athletes and sports teams. A lot of people purchase their favorite teams regardless of the brand. If Nike strategically gets access to the biggest sports teams their sale would increase. If Nike continues to diversify into new markets other than footwear they can begin to dominate different markets such as sporting accessories. Nike has the advantage of compromising price to attract new customers. They already have a loyal customer following so they already have large profit margins. If they take the chance of lowering prices they could increase revenue from new customers. Threats The main threat to Nike is competitors such as Adidas, Puma and Under-Armor. Companies in the same market as Nike are continuously growing, putting pressure on Nike as a company that needs to continue to grow. The price of competitors is a big threat to Nike. Consumers today are more price cautions and will often opt for the cheaper products. As Nike uses overseas outlets to manufacture there is a constant threat that they will be exposed for poor trade practices. If they are exposed it would damage the company’s image and consumers might want to purchase from other suppliers.  · Where do our internal strengths match with external opportunities? This represents the best fit between the companys resources and the options available in the external environment. Nike’s internal strengths matches their external opportunities in the sense that Nike is a globally recognized company that has strong customer loyalty. An external opportunity that Nike could take advantage is lowering their price to attract new customers. As of one Nike’s strengths is strong brand recognition, it makes Nike a desirable brand especially if the prices are lowered. There is a possibility that the increase of new customers could increase profit and get more life-long customers.  · Where do our internal weaknesses match up with external opportunities? What opportunities are we not able to capture? The first weakness of Nike that matches up with external opportunities is that Nike is viewed as a premium brand that is too expensive for some consumers to purchase. The opportunity that this matches up to is the chance Nike has to lower its prices and attract new customers. The reason as to why it is difficult for Nike to capture this opportunity is because Nike carries a certain prestige that they don’t want tainted with cheap prices of their merchandise. If everyone can afford to wear Nike the prestige element wouldn’t have as much of an effect and it could possibly lose customers.  · Where do our internal strengths match up with external threats? What resources do we have that might turn a threat into an opportunity? The internal strengths that match up with the external threats in Nike is the face that Nike outsources all of its production to overseas facilities to save money on the cost of production. The matches with the external threats as the conditions of these overseas facilities leave much to be desired. If a report of these conditions were to ever appear it could severely damage Nike’s reputation. The pressure of other companies such as Adidas and Puma could become an opportunity for Nike to continuously grow and slow down in a very competitive market.  · Where do our internal weaknesses match the external threats in the environment? These are the worst possible scenarios for an organization. The internal weaknesses that match the external threats is the fact that Nike do most of its business through retailers. This is a threat as many consumers can compare prices of Nike to other competitors in a retail store. This could introduce consumers to cheaper prices of rival brands.

Customer Service Representative Policy Assignment

Customer Service Representative Policy - Assignment Example Customer care representatives should ensure they offer clients beyond their anticipations if they intend to retain them in the business and continue to enjoy greater returns in the business. Therefore, customer care representatives should establish close ties with clients in order to promote customer loyalty to the company. Managers should establish a policy of providing training to the customer care representatives in order to ensure excellent services and products to their clients. The customer service representatives in the hospitality industry should promote unity at work in order to ensure excellent delivery of services to their clients (Kahle & Riley 2004). This is because when employees work together as a team, they will be able to solve any issue that may be affecting their clients, and also instil confidence in the visitors hence promoting customer loyalty. The business policy should ensure that all needs of the clients are giving priority to anything else. The management should train their customer care staff to take into consideration all the issues raised by the clients no matter how petty they seem to be. This will not only make clients feel appreciated but will also make them get more than what they anticipated. Failure to provide clients with products and services that suit their specifications will cause them to seek the same elsewhere (Kitchen & Pelsmacker 2004). In addition, customer care representatives should ensure that clients perceive the o rganization to be what it claims to be. They should inquire from the clients about the nature of services and products they expect to get from the company and also ask them to suggest what they would like to be included in the products and services in order to satisfy their needs. The customer service policy should state the objectives of the customer service. The customer care should offer excellent services to their clients and respond to their requests promptly (Barry 2007). The policy should offer an opportunity for training the customer care representatives and define the approach for rewarding them based on the effort they put to serve the clients.  

Trade unions should...have rights which empower them and their Essay

Trade unions should...have rights which empower them and their members. These rights should be clear and unequivocal, and they s - Essay Example Historically, there have been minimal official restrictions on freedom of association in the United Kingdom, even though there have been several, created by a variety of issues (Keith 2008). Mostly, and definitely in the recent decade, the primary concern is related to limitations on trade unions with regard to which several statutory limitations and other restrictions have been implemented (Wrigley 2002). These actions have raised several communications and grievances to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the administrative units of which have had opportunity to discover that the legal code under consideration fails international labour standards (Servais 2008). This subject matter is specifically related to the perspective of the International Covenant’s Article 22 taking into consideration the fact that the essence of these mechanisms is identified by paragraph 3, as this essay will discuss, the exact implication of this prerequisite is quite indefinite. As stated by Keith Ewing and Carolyn Jones (2006): â€Å"Trade unions should... have rights which empower them and their members. These rights should be clear and unequivocal, and they should properly equip trade unions... to act within the boundaries of international labour standards to protect the interests of their members. This means a right to organise, a right to bargain and a right to strike in a new legal settlement for British trade unions...(p. 35)† In view of this statement, this essay will critically analyse the industrial relations law in the United Kingdom. It will provide a brief historical discussion of the law relating to freedom of association and the right to strike and will identify which aspects of UK industrial relations law fail to meet international standards. The Right to Freedom of Association As stated in Article 22(1) (Jayawickrama 2003): Everyone shall have the right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions f or the protection of his interests (p. 735). What is quite ambiguous is the degree to which Article 22 safeguards the movement of individuals who are in association with others. A major problem, stressed by the constitutional courts on the one hand and European Court of Human Rights’ covenant on the other, is whether securities resembling those in Article 22(1) are valid only to safeguard the right to freedom of association, or whether they act further by safeguarding the freedom to act in association with others to advocate the fundamental objectives of the association under consideration (Blanpain 2010). The mechanism in constitutional and international law, by and large, has been to espouse the earlier, much restricted, and much less radical context of interpretation (Keith 2008). As stated by Lecher and Platzer (1997), it is the perspective of the Human Rights Committee as well. Taking into consideration the quite narrow statute it is challenging to determine with any lev el of accuracy whether and to what degree UK law and practice meet Article 22(1). Nevertheless, there are three primary concerns which emerge for analysis: (1) the right to join an association; (2) right of the association to manage its internal activities; and (3) the right of the asso

Confessions For the Rest of Us :: Literary Analysis, God, Augustine of Hippo

Novels are written with the intent to entertain, textbooks to educate, and scripture to exhort. All writing has a purpose, intentional or otherwise. If this were not the case, writing would contain nothing of value. Autobiographies typically serve to inform the reader about the life of a specific person, yet, in Confessions, Augustine of Hippo displays loftier aims. Among other goals, he attempts to use his life story to indirectly guide others to God and truth, an objective to which he applies his considerable literary skill. Often famous historical icons seem to tower in the public eye, casting a shadow of influence that only increases through the ages; they seem somehow more than human. St. Augustine is just such a figure, yet his simple, candid commentary of his life in Confessions paints him as an ordinary man. Augustine went to great lengths to achieve this image, especially in the commencement of his narration. He begins by hyperbolizing his sin even in childhood stating, â€Å"At the time of my infancy, I must have acted reprehensibly† (Augustine 9), and continues this pattern of self-degradation throughout, not out of false humility, but to prove to his audience that he was not born a saint. Augustine spends greater time than necessary covering his ‘sin’ of stealing pears (Augustine 29-34), an act that most would consider a childish prank, and his sexual desires (in which he certainly was not the greatest sinner of his time) not only to explore the nature of transgression b ut also to build his reputation (or lack of it) with his reader (Augustine 24-28). Later in the narrative he describes what most would view as a moral triumph: I also recall how, when I had decided to enter for a poetry competition at the theatre, a soothsayer of some sort sent to ask what fee I would give him to ensure victory. But I replied that I hated and abominated those vile mysteries, and that even if the crown were immortal and made of gold, I would not allow a fly to be killed to bring about my success. For in his mysteries he would be going to kill animals, and by offering these creatures in honour of daemons, his intention was to gain their support for my winning. (Augustine 53-54) He then proceeds to condemn his intentions saying, â€Å"I refused sacrifice to daemons on my behalf; yet by adherence to that superstition I sacrificed myself to them† (Augustine 54).

Nine Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs Essay

1. Motivation Entrepreneurs are enthusiastic, optimistic and future-oriented. They believe they’ll be successful and are willing to risk their resources in pursuit of profit. They have high energy levels and are sometimes impatient. They are always thinking about their business and how to increase their market share. Are you self-motivated enough to do this, and can you stay motivated for extended periods of time? Can you bounce back in the face of challenges? 2. Creativity and Persuasiveness Successful entrepreneurs have the creative capacity to recognize and pursue opportunities. They possess strong selling skills and are both persuasive and persistent. Are you willing to promote your business tirelessly and look for new ways to get the word out about your product or service? 3. Versatility Company workers can usually rely on a staff or colleagues to provide service or support. As an entrepreneur, you’ll typically start out as a â€Å"solopreneur,† meaning you will be on your own for a while. You may not have the luxury of hiring a support staff initially. Therefore, you will end up wearing several different hats, including secretary, bookkeeper and so on. You need to be mentally prepared to take on all these tasks at the beginning. Can you do that? 4. Superb Business Skills Entrepreneurs are naturally capable of setting up the internal systems, procedures and processes necessary to operate a business. They are focused on cash flow, sales and revenue at all times. Successful entrepreneurs rely on their business skills, know-how and contacts. Evaluate your current talents and professional network. Will your skills, contacts and experience readily transfer to the business idea you want to pursue? 5. Risk Tolerance Launching any entrepreneurial venture is risky. Are you willing to assume that risk? You can reduce your risk by thoroughly researching your business concept, industry and market. You can also test your concept on a small scale. Can you get a letter of intent from prospective customers to purchase? If so, do you think customers would actually go through with their transaction? 6. Drive As an entrepreneur, you are in the driver’s seat, so you must be proactive in your approaches to everything. Are you a doer — someone willing to take the reins — or would you rather someone else do things for you? 7. Vision One of your responsibilities as founder and head of your company is deciding where your business should go. That requires vision. Without it, your boat will be lost at sea. Are you the type of person who looks ahead and can see the big picture? 8. Flexibility and Open-Mindedness While entrepreneurs need a steadfast vision and direction, they will face a lot of unknowns. You will need to be ready to tweak any initial plans and strategies. New and better ways of doing things may come along as well. Can you be open-minded and flexible in the face of change? 9. Decisiveness As an entrepreneur, you won’t have room for procrastination or indecision. Not only will these traits stall progress, but they can also cause you to miss crucial opportunities that could move you toward success. Can you make decisions quickly and seize the moment?

Adam Smiths Theory in the Current World Economy Free Essay Example, 1500 words

The free market economy is still the dominant force in the world market today. It will always be an integral part of every economic activity. Yet, even countries like the USA and in Europe, a perfectly free market economy doesn t exist in reality. With the pressing issues of the financial crisis and recessions, the free market is one of the factors that carry the burden to explain what really happened. The evolution of the economy makes Smith s economic freedom much less be effective today. The weakness of this concept already exists since the birth of its definition way back to Smith. Ultimately, there is no way to separate the government from the market. The very least participation of the government is on the provision of currency for the market. Indirect involvement through transportation, infrastructures, defense, and education greatly helps the market economy. Without government interventions, the likelihood that monopolies will take over the free market is highly possible (B echtold, 2011). Maybe, the seemingly faltering free market can point its fingers to the lack or poor economic planning of most countries. If only Adam Smith is alive today, he would definitely make strategic improvements in his free-market ideology. We will write a custom essay sample on Adam Smith's Theory in the Current World Economy or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/page Direct interventions can lead to corruption and distortion of market frameworks (Scott, 2006). However, the policy must be created as an open book to everyone, especially the economic players in the free market. This includes the identification of various economic actors and recognition of different market frameworks within the free market system.