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Articles from
Rural Lodge Newsletter |
Wheresoe'er dispersed
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Not that you’re likely to be spelling this out any time soon… but wheresoe’er is the shortening of wheresoever, which is a more emphatic form of ‘wherever’. The apostrophe is placed at the location of the missing letter, as in Hallowe’en or can’t (for cannot), don’t (for do not), shouldn’t (for should not), etcetera. There is a gradual trend in the written language to dropping these apostrophes (vide Halloween), but it’s not possible with can’t. <Can’t> can’t be <cant>, which is a different word.
The missing letter rule also applies to <its> and <it’s>, where <its> means <of it> and <it’s> means <it is>. This can be especially tricky because the apostrophe is also used in possessives, and <of it> is possessive. Confusion of <its> and <it’s> is the commonest spelling error in written English! Try not to fall into the trap! Masons and lawyers are very familiar with some of these antique but precise words: Whence, thence and hence mean from where, from there, from here; so never use them with a preposition, as in “from whence” which is considered tautological (bad usage) unless you’re writing archaisms – as in the King James Bible “from whence cometh my help”. WHEREAS notwithstanding the precision of the words hereinbefore mentioned, |
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| From Newsletter 18 24 March 2006 |
Rural Lodge AF&AM
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