I have only just this second realised that "Rovers Return" actually means something and isn't just two random words put together. I'm a writer, you know. I blame the lack of apostrophe.
Employee gets laid off due to extreme body odor: ‘I genuinely felt bad for
him. He had only just started the job and hadn’t really had the chance to
show what he could contribute. You could tell he felt embarrassed and
ashamed’
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To pass the smell test
I felt really identified with this story because I've had to deal with this
issue multiple times in my life. I don't mean with my bo...
2 hours ago
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7 comments:
I'm sorry to be so terribly geeky, but I don't think it needs an apostrophe. I assumed it meant that it was a place where those who have been roving return: ie that a plurality of rovers would return there. As opposed to being a place devoted to the return of somebody called rover, which would need an apostrophe.
I do get very upset by missing apostrophes though. Somebody at work has just put up a sign telling everyone to wash their own dishes because, "This is not the cleaners job". It makes my eyeball twitch every time I look at it.
Which would make it the Rovers' Return - still gets an apostrophe. Doesn't it? (Slinks away anxiously...)
Well, yes, in that sense. But also no, in another. I was thinking of it in the present tense - imagine a gaggle of Coronation Street characters gathered in the square (is there a square, or is that just Eastenders?). Anyway so they're gathered somewhere near the pub and one of them points and shouts, "Ey-up pet! Look! T' rovers return!"
And then the camera pans round to show a gaggle of scruffy flat-cap-clad rogues, with sacks and stolen sheep slung over their shoulders, coming back from a marauding raid on neighbouring counties. So the rovers return, minus the need for an apostrophe.
Am I thinking about this too much?
I'm with Marie on the punctuation, but for poetry, imagery, and giggle-production, Carolyn wins this time.
If Corontaion Street was as good as Carolyn's description, there's a chance I might actually watch it. My favourite bit is the stolen sheep, probably nicked from those folks over at Emmerdale.
...which they'll then flog from under their raincoats to the folks at Eastenders. I can't understand why no-one has made an inter-soap series, with the best characters from each of them. Surely all the viewers of every soap would tune in, and you'd have the highest-rated soap ever? Maybe I should find a TV exec to pitch it to.
Sorry Marie, I'm with Carolyn on this one. I don't think it's a possessive thing - that would be "The Rover's Return" or "The Rovers' Return". Like she says, I think it's more a statement of fact that, eventually, rovers do come back to their home.
Or surely someone would have noticed in the past 40-odd years and they would have fixed it...?!?
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