"greengrocer's apostrophe" (was Re: Cam(pb)ell)

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:05 AM -0400 8/4/00, Steve K. wrote:
>On Thu, 3 Aug 2000, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>
>>  apostrophe's used for the plural.
>
>do you call them greengrocer's scarequotes, too?
>
>"fresh" muskemelon's -- only "one dollar"
>etc.
>
>--- Steve K.

To respond to the earlier query:  Yes, the label is very
British-sounding, since "greengrocer" is not really used this side of
the pond to my knowledge, but since the apostrophe is used for
plurals here too (the questions of when and by whom and why were
discussed on ads-l and Linguist List a few years ago) and since
there's no alternate label for the phenomenon, we just borrowed it
from our transpondian cousins.  I don't know ANY label for the
innovative quotes-for-emphasis Steve mentions, though.

larry