Apostrophe Rumble

I have no idea's

I am 95% sure that is correct, but it looks really weird.

Not unless it means 'the something of the pickin'. So it would have to be 'the pickin's small, furry ears were slim'.

No, I think it's OK because the apostrophe used to illustrate a contraction of a longer word (I'm assuming in this context pickin' is a slang way of picking, yes?)

ha, if it were the something of the pickin' then that'd make it the pickin''s something, wouldn't it?

no, wouldn't "the pickin's slim" meaning "the picking is slim" work and "the pickins' were slim" be right?

I view "pickin's" as a contraction of "pickings", or at least "pickin's" is the plural of "pickin'". So the question boils down to this: If a word ends in an apostrophe, should that apostrophe be retained as-is when making the term plural?

yeah, that's where I always get confused

I think the occasion is so rare it may not have a rule: almost always when a "g" is dropped from -ing, it's a VERB and not a noun, so this question doesn't arise.

Maybe I'm just having a tired moment, but I can't think of another -ing noun of the top of my head. Pickings is a colloquialism anyway, I would judge.

Being. Offering. Can't imagine them being contracted to end in in' though.

"pickin's were slim" is correct. The apostrophe is there to mark the removal of the 'g', not to denote possession.

drawin'
paintin'
openin' I'm sure there's loads

Openin' would be used a lot I'm sure

Lightning.

tellin' ya 'round these parts the pickin's're slimmer 'n a shadow on a summer's eve

OMG I have just re-read my posts upthread, cannot believe I am trying to explain grammar when I cannot phrase my thoughts grammatically. I blame the drinkin'.

hayo!

yeah, my theory doesn't make any sense whatsoever now I look at it again, it's just that, well, "pickin's", as has been duly noted, looks so, so wrong.

everythin that ends in a ing can be changed to end in in if you talk like that, and if you're going to write like some people talk then you're writing in dialect and the apostrophe rules kinda just go to hell anyway, not to mention a lot of other grammar regulations. so really it's just a big free-for-all.

yeah, but please don't write like that all the time, because it hurts my eyes and is borderline offensive

well i guess you should then avoid the many many books written at least partly in dialect

somebody made me try to read "McCarthy's Bar", and it was just horrible, because pretty much every Irish person he meets is a big bag of apostrophes whereas he just comes out like english.

it is true that dialect like that works five thousand times better in sound and film than written down tho

i like reading it, however

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Ooh now I'm thinking about -ing nouns and so far pickings (which I guess is pretty much always plural), drawing, and painting are in all probability derived from their verbs. Likewise knitting, sewing...hmm what else? Sports, I guess: diving, swimming -- still verbs. So you can "noun" pretty much anything. "Whacha doin'?" "Jes waterin' mah plantin's."

"Aw shucks"

I hate when they drop the 'g' in ads, et al.

http://www.dealbreaker.com/images/entries/McDonalds%20I%27m%20lovin%20it%20logo.jpg

I would already PRONOUNCE it like that, what with my hillbilly ways of pronouncing things. To try & FORCE me to is kind of insulting. To me. Personally. That's right, McDonald's, I took it personally.

SLIM PICKENS

http://www.rubyan.com/politics/SlimPickens.jpg

a big bag of apostrophes<3

I'm kind of lovin' a big bag o' apostrophes.

another casualty: RIP Apostrophe