Frustrated With Apostrophes?

[Alec McPhedran]

The Great Apostrophes Debate
I've posted this following a minor (and really good childish) dispute with a colleague. Warning: Lots of alcohol isn't always a good thing.

The rules concerning the use of Apostrophes in written English are very simple:
1. They are used to denote a missing letter or letters, for example:
- I can't instead of I cannot
- I don't instead of I do not
- it's instead of it is

2. They are used to denote possession, for example:
- the dog's bone
- the company's logo
- Jones's bakery (but Joneses' bakery if owned by more than one Jones)
... but please note that the possessive form of it does not take an apostrophe any more than ours, yours or hers do
- the bone is in its mouth

... however, if there are two or more dogs, companies or Joneses in our example, the apostrophe comes after the 's':
- the dogs' bones
- the companies' logos
- Joneses' bakeries

3. Apostrophes are NEVER ever used to denote plurals! Common examples of such abuse (all seen in real life!) are:
- Banana's for sale which of course should read Bananas for sale
- Menu's printed to order which should read Menus printed to order
- MOT's at this garage which should read MOTs at this garage
- 1000's of bargains here! which should read 1000s of bargains here!
- New CD's just in! which should read New CDs just in!
- Buy your Xmas tree's here! which should read Buy your Xmas trees here!

Note: Special care must be taken over the use of your and you're as they sound the same but are used quite differently:

your is possessive as in this is your pen

you're is short for you are as in you're coming over to my house

We are aware of the way the English language is evolving during use, and do not intend any direct criticism of those who have made the mistakes above. We are just reminding all writers of English text, whether on notices or in documents of any type, of the correct usage of the apostrophe should you wish to put right mistakes you may have inadvertently made.

The Apostrophe Protection Society
23 Vauxhall Road, Boston, Lincs. PE21 0JB
United Kingdom

The Apostrophe Protection Society was started in 2001 by John Richards, now its Chairman, with the specific aim of preserving the correct use of this currently much abused punctuation mark in all forms of text written in the English language.

The above was taken from the Apostrophe Protection Society web site.

[Marg McPhedran Axford]

Hi Alec, I enjoyed your apostrophe post and could not agree more. I'm in Canada and our newspapers, particularly advertisements, are full of incorrrectly placed apostrophes. Incidentally I found your blog while googling McPhedran, my surname.
My father who recently passed away at the age of 87 was also an Alex, but he pronounced it 'Alec'
Cheers from London Ontario, Canada
Marg.

[David Hamill]

'whose agent' would have been fine.

[Stuart Cosgrove]

"...which Players agent" could be the sales rep of a '60s brand of cigarette. Apostrophes matter.

[Alec McPhedran]

Stuart - Now look at what you've unleaded!

[Stuart Cosgrove]

"which player's agent..." was the rant. It came about because on radio you cannot hear an apostrophe. I wanted clarity if it was "which player's agent" or "which players' agent". This is crucially important did the agent only represent one player or a range of players.

[David Hamill]

I thought it might have been something like that. My coffee rush is calming down. I just need to go and find the site of this society before it goes completely :0)

[Alec McPhedran]

Brilliant David and actually, couldn't agree with you more. It simply came up after someone pointed me to Stuart Cosgrove ranting on YouTube about apostrophes on his radio show - which was really funny. I simply dug out this article to prove a childish point to one of my colleagues after we started to argue over a bleedin' apostrophe. Sad.

[David Hamill]

I'd start the Apostrophe Abolition Society, if only I thought it was that important. They are a totally useless piece of punctuation. The only purpose they serve is to give apostrophe pedants something to complain about.

I try to get them right, but only because they exist. If they didn't exist nobody would get them wrong.

The purpose of language as I see it, is to communicate not pontificate.

The reason that people make so many mistakes with them is that they're so useless. If they were necessary, people would use them correctly automatically. The fact that it took you nearly 400 words to explain them pretty much proves that they aren't as straightforward as you say.

Here's an example of how they add nothing:

Mary King's Close

It is the capitalisation of the letter C in the word 'close' that tells you that this is a street and not that Mary King is on her way and will be here in a minute. In reality, it is the context that explains this, as it does in so many ways in many languages.

"Mary Kings close, she called me and said she'd be here in a minute"
"This is Mary Kings Close, its really spooky"

These are both incorrect, but you understand them.

I you want a worthy cause to follow regarding the English language see the Campaign for Plain English:
http://www.plainenglish.org/

Gobbledegook has a bigger impact on how we communicate in this country in comparison to the correct use of pointless pieces of punctuation. The loss of productivity from trying to understand (and often totally misunderstanding) verbose documents must run into millions of pounds a year.

Sorry for the rant. I had 4 cups of coffee this morning.

[Paul Bennun]

WTF?