(n.) A figure of speech by which the orator or writer suddenly breaks off from the previous method of his discourse, and addresses, in the second person, some person or thing, absent or present; as, Milton's apostrophe to Light at the beginning of the third book of "Paradise Lost."
(n.) The contraction of a word by the omission of a letter or letters, which omission is marked by the character ['] placed where the letter or letters would have been; as, call'd for called.
(n.) The mark ['] used to denote that a word is contracted (as in ne'er for never, can't for can not), and as a sign of the possessive, singular and plural; as, a boy's hat, boys' hats. In the latter use it originally marked the omission of the letter e.
Example Sentences:
(1) The Ukrainian security service said it had forbidden Seagal entry to the country for five years, in a letter published by the news site Apostrophe.
(2) What if she misuses an apostrophe in her next post?
(3) The apostrophe has been missing since time immemorial.
(4) Instinctively, I glance at my room, looking for long-gone stickers in the window, the one for Mix ’96 (“Bucks Best Music” – the lack of apostrophe still irritates), and an aquapark we once went to in Spain.
(5) The word did not exist until the early 1700s, when the “a” in “acute” was replaced by an apostrophe – ’cute – and then dropped altogether.
(6) "The theme tune by Ronnie Hazlehurst features a piccolo spelling out the title in Morse code, excluding the apostrophes.
(7) He campaigned mightily to preserve the correct usage of the apostrophe, and the good councillors of Clogthorpe would be lampooned regularly as they ponderously set about desecrating their Victorian town in the cause of modernity.
(8) But it is far more important to highlight the moments that make this job truly special, like seeing the imagination a year 10 boy will put into thinking up a false name when caught misbehaving, or the deliberate misuse of an apostrophe by a student who, in his own way, is showing you he gets it.
(9) • This article was amended on 21 June 2012 to remove a misplaced apostrophe in the standfirst.
(10) But Tussauds (which has now dropped the apostrophe) never quite enjoyed the credibility of a museum and tended to be sneered at by historians.
(11) Unfortunately named cafe chain Apostrophe also fell victim to the curse of the apostrophe in a marketing slogan, "Great taste on it's way".
(12) Long before Lynne Truss's, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Waterhouse founded The Association for the Abolition of the Aberrant Apostrophe: vile lapses of grammar in shops were among many regular targets.
(13) It could be something as small as a "Hope your OK" text, which will send me spiralling into apocalyptic visions of a life without apostrophes or question marks.
(14) As annoying as errant apostrophes and misplaced hyphens can be, they probably didn’t warrant their own website, nor were so offensive as to need incineration.
(15) Next comes the NHS, for confusing subject and object in a letter – "Your appointment has now been organised to attend Queen Mary's Hospital … " – and featuring a rogue apostrophe: "The RDC Suite's are clearly signposted".
Soliloquy
Definition:
(n.) The act of talking to one's self; a discourse made by one in solitude to one's self; monologue.
(n.) A written composition, reciting what it is supposed a person says to himself.
Example Sentences:
(1) But rather than take my seat, the bell was my signal to take the stage, from where I delivered an hour-long soliloquy.
(2) Deliciously groomed and styled by someone who seemingly doesn't hate women, Jodie Foster was fully prepared for the biggest soliloquy of her life.
(3) This essay is an attempt to pull together a multiplicity of phenomena variously called "private speech," "egocentric speech," "self-communicative speech," "self-guiding speech" or "soliloquy" within a unified perspective.
(4) In Britain the conversation had been largely a soliloquy conducted by Jamie Oliver, who has raised the price of soda in his restaurants, with the money going to children’s anti-obesity programmes.
(5) Then the militia guy, who was in his twenties, delivered the strangest soliloquy I have ever heard in my life, more surreal than anything else I’ve experienced, even on stage, from Beckett on down.
(6) An "intrapersonal soliloquy" is exemplified by the person who has looked up a telephone number in the directory and repeats it to himself for better retention as he prepares to dial the telephone, while "interpersonal soliloquy" is illustrated by one's rehearsal of a speech destined for public delivery.
(7) An example of what can be called "regressive soliloquy" is the instinctive cry of a newborn baby or the involuntary curse of a person who has just struck his thumb with a hammer.
(8) Bang!” soliloquy eerily reminiscent of his research – even though her life has been nowhere near as rough as Gilligan’s case studies.
(9) Meanwhile "A Striking Soliloquy" sums up the commuter's dilemma – so akin to that of Shakespeare's most troubled hero – in just six well-chosen syllables.
(10) You could see the Lord Justice's brows furrow as he dumped a little soliloquy of problems in Tony Blair's lap last week.
(11) We have programmed a computer interview to facilitate soliloquy and have studied its effectiveness.
(12) Arena's main soliloquy is breathtaking: wearing a face-painted mask of kaleidoscopic colours and in drag (a red dress), his character declaims a kind of manifesto: "I wish to live in the drama of schism, of division … Live for a different idea, cultivate love for another possibility unforeseen, full of attraction and danger, necessary, inevitable, fatal... " Written by Punzo, made rhetorical by Arena, who speaks his lines with a mixture of mockery and defiance, across a range of facial expression that excites as much as it discomforts.
(13) Tamblyn made her loathsome character pop and fizz, Jackson was very Jackson (at one point, he bursts out laughing and say, "I can't believe I'm reading this...." - a horrifying, blowjob-heavy soliloquy), and Goggins earns his second-lead status effortlessly.
(14) You can imagine how much “wisdom” his three minute soliloquy on the dangers of encryption contained.
(15) She would spin a 15-minute soliloquy, her arms waving and her face one big smile, about having no home, about riding the subway at night to sleep and staying away from men trying to grab her in the dark: “Of course I pissed in my pants.
(16) What with his flair for introspection, his gift for ribald parody, his excoriating candour, his contempt for 'phoneyness', his weakness for soliloquy and his desperate conviction that the time is out of joint, Jimmy Porter is the completest young pup in our literature since Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
(17) But Armando took me by the hand, led me into the rehearsal space, I did my soliloquy, and he liked it.
(18) Travellers who started their working week this morning with a long, rainy trudge to the office as a result of the latest round of industrial action by LU staff now have a little poetic solace on offer in the form of two new McGough poems: "A Striking Soliloquy" and "Tube strike Haiku".
(19) Later Martin Freeman's Watson delivered an affecting soliloquy at Holmes's presumed grave – unaware that Holmes (or someone just like him) was watching.
(20) 'The result is the beginning of a conversation, not the closing statement of a soliloquy.'