Discussion on:

Oh for the love of God, put a space after your verbs!

Make sure it's in the proper gear. If it's in Drive it could ram into the entry parked in front of it.

Backup is the procedure to run, backup is itself a verb.
The same can be said for shutdown. Shutdown is the procedures name.
"Did you shutdown the workstation first?"
Is asking if you ran the shutdown procedure.

...backup is a noun. When you run a "backup" procedure, you are running (verb) the backup (noun). The act of backing up still describes a procedure, or a "thing". This is subjective, but still true however.
In short, the term "backup" is a noun that defines/describes the operation of backing up data.

The English language is open to interpretation, frequently there is no 1 right answer.

y'see, the apostrophe is used in a possessive: "the Nazi's grammar was better than yours." A plural doesn't need an apostrophe: "the Nazis will always write more impressive job applications than you."

It seems to be a deprecated style now, but I was formally taught in school that apostrophes could be used in possessives, contractions and plurals of dates, acronyms and so forth eg 1920's which is now often 1920s, NGO's (now usually NGOs), especially where not using it could cause confusion.

Na'zi just looks weird.

Of what two (or more) words?

Nationalsozialismus
So national socialism

EDIT: Well, actually I guess it's Nationalsozialistich, national socialist, d'oh!

"Plurals of dates, acronyms and so forth" have never been indicated by the use of apostrophes. Your teachers were poorly educated and, in turn, taught you substandard use.

That's appropriate."I can't decide which of these two tie's looks the best with these shirt's" does not work.

I learned to write that way on message forums so that the non English speakers can easily figure out the root words rather than them trying to translate nazis.

Iguessitisjustnotyourfault'causeyoulearnedhowtowriteonmessageforums/fora(actually).Yourappreciateionandsympathyfornon-Englishspeakersistouching.Anybreakshereweredonebythisforum.Notme.

"appreciateion" is usually spelled "appreciation"...
As you just found out, the spell checker can't help you when you leave out the spaces.

The Nazi was shot for ignoring orders.
(singular description of a Nazi)

Nazis are not popular.
(more than one Nazi, hence a group)

The Nazi's gun was discharged.
(possessive of/by one Nazi)

The Nazis' guns were many and used to cause much harm.
(conveys ownership by more than one Nazi (as a group))

Even though it is very common both in respected publications and on home(-)made signs, the use of an apostrophe as Slayer has done drives me batty. The apostrophe is used "ONLY" in the possesive form. Please, please, please me; don't use it as above.

but that is incorrect.

Wikipedia:
The apostrophe ( although often rendered as ' ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet or certain other alphabets. In English, it serves three purposes:[1]

The marking of the omission of one or more letters (as in the contraction of do not to don't).
The marking of possessive case (as in the cat's whiskers).
The marking as plural of written items that are not words established in English orthography (as in P's and Q's, the late 1950's). (This is considered incorrect by some; see Use in forming certain plurals. The use of the apostrophe to form plurals of proper words, as in apple's, banana's, etc., is universally considered incorrect.)

One '1950' was 1953. Another was 1959. Those were two of the 1950s (get it?). 1950's is singular possessive: "1950's Greatest Hits" means one year's worth: the year 1950. 1950s' Greatest Hits is the decade's worth (plural possessive). You must either call it "50s music" (plural adjective; a genre), or "Music of the 50's" (music that *belongs* to the entire decade; singular possessive).
"The 1950s' music" is correct plural possessive of music that *belongs* to more than one of thos individual years comprising the decade. Wikipedia-----lol. Don't believe that's a very authoritative source for proper usage, or a good foundation for a 'correction'. A 'style book' (there are several) would be better, but they don't agree with your Wiki entry.

Although if one's company subscribes to them, they get a form of authority from that.

The system you describe is consistent and sufficient, no doubt about that, but the use of style manuals is no substitute for making up one's own mind

The AP Style Manual doesn't agree with the Chicago Manual of Style, which doesn't agree with the MLA Handbook, which doesn't agree with...you get the picture.

that's recommended by a person, organisation, or group of either as what THEY prefer to see used when submitting anything to them. In the USA a common use style manual is the Chicago Manual of Style and the newspaper industry has another one of their own. Hell, all universities and colleges have a style manual for the setting out and submission of essays - some even have them different between faculties.

None of the existing style manuals are the be all and end all or final definitive authority of the English language - each is just a preferred set of available options.

As a writer, I often end up seeing, and sometimes being involved in, forum discussions on if something is right or not as it's NOT in the CMoS - this is because some fools see the CMoS as the definitive authority, and it is not, just the most common one used by businesses in the uSA.

They're for quotations, not for emphasis.

nt

are the preferred format for emphasis.

Wrap them in <Emphasis> tags and hope the reader has experience in XML?

for some names like the name of a book or a ship etc. Although many modern authors use italics for that now.

Other ways to show an emphasis that can vary depending upon what the system will allow are capitals for the whole word, bold, italics, and change of font.

n/t

if you intend to indicate possession or plurality. All it does is make sure you've spelled the work correctly, not necessarily used it correctly.

To say it is subject to interpretation, indicates a lack of real teaching. We have incorporated so much 'conversational language' into the true verbal language that it has been sorely abused. Now, should you actually study English for what it should be, you'd find a very tight set of rules. When used properly, those tools provide something we can all read and understand.
How many times have a read articles and blogs, and had to interpret what was written, because the author used random words and thoughts, which they figured conveyed the ideas.
I love to read, and well used language makes the material smarter. Inserting slang into a book to convey the local dialect may be necessary, but should not be the normal writing.
I know that over the years, schools have lost a lot in the way of teaching English. Schools here don't even teach phonics. No wonder the kids can't spell. How many of you can define a participle or give the 8 forms of a verb.
I'm sure my writing lacks a lot, but I do enjoy writing and speaking correctly.

conversation was where language began, and it's where it lives on, to this day.
Writing is where language goes to die.

Or are you scared your non-arguments won't stand the light of day?

What you posted was just plain goofy.
"[C]onversation was where language began, and it's where it lives on, to this day.
Writing is where language goes to die."

Fatuous, nonsensical gibberish.

I don't know about dying. It's where it goes to stop growing, but Shakespeare sure as heck ain't dead.

Are they spoken, much? They are known to us, are they not, because of their writings?

A pun, yes, but nonetheless; spoken language is our mother tongue, it is how we learn the language, how we practice the language, and how we develop the language. Writing follows behind.

Did you know, that when you read, it's your hearing center that lights up?

but old Shakey, he ain't movin' anymore

. . . Not "You've got it backwards", nor "You have got it backwards".

Next, you'll tell me there's no such word as ain't...

And are also different from the rules that will be in place three centuries from today.

Language changes. Once a language stops changing, it begins to die. Even the Academie Française has finally come to realize that.

I too like to see English written and spoken correctly. However I think teaching phonics is pointless as English does not fit a nice set of arbitrary rules.

If English spelling was brought forward to the present age (instead of representing phonetic transcriptions of some three to five hundred years past), it could be made quite consistent.
Of course, after making it consistent, it would be a matter of time before the changes to the proper, spoken language would render it once again inconsistent.

.

Give it five hundred years

It's obvious: You use gratuitous apostrophes. The plural of Nazi is Nazis. No apostrophe.

nae - zis?

na-zis?
what is a nazis?

Are you trying to say Natsies?

there is a right answer.

If backup is a verb, do you accept the tense "He is backuping his drive".
The ending -ing is a "clitic", attaching itself to the root of the verb, BEFORE prepositions (postpositions to the verb, really).

If you can't bring yourself to say backuping, then you're really saying back up, not backup.

In programming, we also invent words (usually based on procedure or exe names)

"is your system working?"
"Yeah, its wincriuping now")

"backing up". Since we are talking about verbs here, there is no such verb as backuping, so your argument is moot.

I provided a test with which a person can find out if they're saying "back up something" or "backup something".

No need for your normative stance. In this thread people are saying "I hate it when..." or "I was taught that...", and that's all honest opinion. Your statement above was not.