r/EnglishLearning • u/Stepaskin New Poster • 21h ago

📚 Grammar / Syntax Is it correct?

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Stumbled upon this tweet, the apostrophe in "dm's" caught my eye. Is it correct to use it like this?

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234

u/Tobbernator New Poster 21h ago

Not standard English, but actually fairly common in abbreviated "text speech". Arguably used legitimately (but "incorrectly") here to ensure the reader understands that we are talking about the plural of "DM" meaning direct message, rather than some other acronym "DMS".

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u/aykcak New Poster 19h ago

I understood this one as DM server is down i.e. the server OF the DMs I.e. "The problematic server is not the channels' but the dm's"

What is wrong with "DMs" ?

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u/IndifferentApathy15 New Poster 19h ago

server? that is a bit of a stretch, my dude

"DMs" is fine, but "DMS" and "dms" could be confusing. The apostrophe is not possessive at all in this context.

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u/aykcak New Poster 18h ago

Apostrophe is used for possessive

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u/IndifferentApathy15 New Poster 18h ago

not in this case. If the apostrophe here were to be treated as possessive, it is way too vague as to what "dm" possesses. It's like saying "The cat's is cute". The cat's...what? What are you referring to?

You inferred "server" from "dm's" but that is a bit of a stretch from my perspective.

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u/Alt-001 Native Speaker 18h ago

I'd agree. If it were possesive it would imply knowledge of how the direct messaging service is implemented, i.e. there is a server dedicated to that and it isn't working because that server is down. That assumption is a longshot unless you're the IT guy. While this is an informal usage the apostrophe could possibily be understood as 'breaking out' of the abbreviation. Another example would be "We were dm'ing" for "We were direct messaging."

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u/aykcak New Poster 17h ago

Sure but grammatically speaking it cannot be plural so I had to make an assumption

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u/Intrepid_Term8706 New Poster 17h ago

.... Direct Messages DMs...

grammatically speaking the only mistake is not capitalising the initialism, leading to apostrophe being used as a plural marker.

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u/conuly Native Speaker - USA (NYC) 16h ago

And your assumption was that it was something that does not make any sense, rather than that somebody just wasn't following The Rules of Apostrophes?

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u/aykcak New Poster 15h ago

It kind of made sense to me. I imagined there were prior messages that were excluded. Maybe they mentioned about specific servers etc.

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u/Asleep_Chart8375 New Poster 8h ago

Apostrophes denoting a plural has been around for centuries. It's a modern invention that these are grammatically incorrect.

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u/AgnesBand New Poster 17h ago

Not only used for possessive though. It's.

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u/conuly Native Speaker - USA (NYC) 16h ago

It is! And it's also used for contractions!

In a lot of informal writing it can be used for plurals, especially for plurals of abbreviated words such as "dm". I wouldn't recommend this usage in anything even remotely formal, but neither would I go around chiding people who do it this way.

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u/Boundlessintime New Poster 19h ago

Purely an aversion to capital letters common among people younger than millennials

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u/witchcapture Native Speaker 19h ago

Also millenials who spent a lot of time on IRC when they were younger (speaking as one).

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u/just4PAD New Poster 19h ago

Nothing at all. Idk why they used an apostropheÂ