Lightning/Bug #3: Think Before You Apostrophize
Hullo. Taking a break from blogging Brande’s book (b-b-b-briefly) so that those of us playing along at home can work on the morning writing and scheduled writing exercises for a few days. This conveniently opens up blogging space for other endeavors, such as griping. Mmm, griping. What have we got to gripe about today?
Peeve: Inappropriate use of the apostrophe
Latest Culprit: Whoever sells advertising banner space on the sides of Denver RTD buses
It is difficult to express the sheer pain occasioned by the mere sight of one of these advertisements. It’s like a mental assault. It oughtn’t to be allowed.
You know the type of ad, right? How advertising companies use their own unsold space to advertise their own services? “Hey! You’re looking at our ad space! See how well it works? What if your ad was in this space? People would look at it, wouldn’t they?” Or, more simply, “Look here! (So are thousands of your potential customers.)”
Well, the one that causes me to grit and grind my teeth every time I see it, the one that I see nearly every day on Denver-area buses, features an underwater scene in which a fish approaches a hook, and the caption is…
(”No! Go back! It’s a trap!”)
Would that it were. No, the caption is…
Caught ‘ya!
What the fresh and freakish hell is an apostrophe doing at the beginning of the colloquialism “ya”? What letters is it taking the place of? Is the sign designer asserting that “ya” is a contraction? Is the fisherman chortling that he reeled in ‘ya (that’s short for Enya) to sing “Orinoco Flow” for his personal amusement?
You know what my guess is? My guess is, the sign designer isn’t asserting anything at all. The sign designer isn’t thinking. The sign designer is following #3 of Bob the Angry Flower’s “Popular But Incorrect Rules” list; to wit, “Add an apostrophe whenever you want.”
In the words of Bob the Angry Flower, “No! Wrong! Totally wrong! Where’d you learn this? STOP DOING IT!”
Apostrophes have two, count ‘em, two uses:
- They take the place of omitted letters in contractions.
- They cooperate with the letter “s” to construct the possessive form of singular nouns, plural nouns, but never of pronouns.
If you are thinking of using an apostrophe, make sure that apostrophe is part of a properly formed possessive noun (never a pronoun!) or is actually taking the place of omitted letters. If you can’t clearly articulate why you’re using the apostrophe, it doesn’t belong!
Did I mention that possessive pronouns never take the apostrophe? Never, never, never! “That bag of hers, its color is green.” Not an apostrophe in the lot!
“It’s” always means “It is.” Contraction, see? The apostrophe takes the place of the space and the “i”. If “it is” makes no sense in the sentence, you don’t want “it’s”; you want “its.”
Exception: “ain’t” is properly a contraction of “am not.” (Common usage also has it in place of “is not” and “are not,” but that’s just crazy talk.) The apostrophe stands in for the “o” of “not.” The “n” is easier to pronounce in front of the “t” than the “m” would be (Wikipedia tells us the original contraction was “an’t”). And the “i” showed up via dialectal pronunciation drift (you’ve heard people say “cain’t,” right?).
Which is probably more than you ever wanted to know about that poor beleaguered contraction.
Bonus peeve: While it may make little sense to speak of the proper spelling of slang, please do all us native Southerners a favor and spell it “y’all.” The apostrophe takes the place of the “ou” in “you,” OK?
Well, OK, fine, if you insist it’s a contraction of “ya all,” I can’t stop you from spelling it “ya’ll.” I bet you use it as a singular, too. *shudder* Barbarians, all of y’all.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:33 am
Yes, but what do you expect of the people who design those “Hey - you looked at us, ha ha!” posters - which are my tooth-gnashing pet peeve: I glared at one on my way into work this morning. No - you have not just “proven that outdoor/bench advertising works,” you’ve proven that humans will instinctively glance at a big sign with a representation of a face upon it. It’s not enough to make someone look, you have to actually convince them to buy the product, and you haven’t filled me with a desire to go out and rent ad space, except maybe to leave it empty as a rest for the commuters’ eyes.
June 29th, 2007 at 9:33 am
Gah! Yes. I hate hate hate the saying that “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.” There are companies I will never patronize because their advertisements are stupid, or dishonest, or just plain annoying. Grr!