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Subject:Re: Punctuating a non-standard phrase From:"Parks, Beverly L." <parksb -at- HUACHUCA-EMH7 -dot- ARMY -dot- MIL> Date:Fri, 7 Jun 1996 12:11:00 MST
> 1) Grab-n-go
2) Grab n' go
3) Grab 'n' go <
David Jones said:
I've also seen it as Grab'n'Go (all one word, suggestive of the action
and its speed).
============
David is probably closest to making it correct English, if you're worried
about that. The apostrophes are being used to replace the letters "a" and
"d" in "and", and are often used in this way to form contractions.
Granted, the vast majority of contractions are made up of two words and
the apostrophe replaces only one letter, but I don't think there is a
rule enforcing that limit.
So, aesthetically, grab-n-go is nice, but grammatically (or
punctuationally <G>), either grab'n'go or grab 'n' go is more correct.
Note: FWIW, the spell checker just now urped on grab'n'go but had no
problem with grab 'n' go!
You'd probably get a more thorough discussion of this on the copyediting
list!
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