Lightning/Bug #7: Revisiting Apostrophes
September 4, 2007
Why should quotation marks have all the fun? Apostrophe abuse also gets a blog, appropriately entitled “Apostrophe Abuse,” which only goes to show that if you’re turned off by my occasional forays into pet peeve blogging, it could be worse–I could be doing this all the time.
Like The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks, Apostrophe Abuse is a photo journal. It documents signs and advertisements that are guaranteed to make a writer’s teeth ache. Especially when the abusers are people trying to pass themselves off as writing experts:
![A reference guide for writer's... and [torture] for language lovers](http://bp1.blogger.com/_aR7uIk5VS2Y/RtT9-fHKTfI/AAAAAAAAAW4/zwFIWMaJfLg/s1600-h/writer%27s.jpg)
And while the infamous it’s versus its and y’all versus ya’ll fiascoes put in an expected appearance, as do many examples of people punctuating plurals as though they were possessives (bring your camara’s what?), things don’t stop there. These intrepid bloggers have documented weirdness from on beyond those zebras…
Quick review: The plural of lady is ladies. The possessive of lady is lady’s. The possessive of ladies is ladies’. The word ladie? Doesn’t exist. Except maybe as a typo for laddie (masculine parallel of lassie, possibly the name of a dog in a Terry Pratchett novel).
But you didn’t need me to tell you that. Nor do you need me to tell you that this, this here, is…
…just very, very wrong.
I swear. Next time I see that damn “caught ‘ya!” bus advert, I know where to send the photo.
A sandwich shop in Toronto used to have a menu on the wall which I was sorry to see corrected - grammatically, it was all right, it’s just - well, every time they used the word authentic they put it in quotes, which kind of sent a mixed message:
Our sandwiches are made with “authentic” Italian bread.
Comment by Sarah — September 4, 2007 @ 6:35 pm
It’s funny but we’ve managed to infect Mexico with the apostrophe. Down here, you’ll often see stores selling DVD’s and CD’s. For many people, los setenta is now los 70’s. I’m not sure how it happened, though, since there are no apostrophes in Spanish.
Comment by Kristina — September 5, 2007 @ 7:04 pm
Snrk! “authentic”. Bwahaha! Man, Sarah, I’m sorry that menu got changed too. ‘Cause a photo of it totally needed to get sent to the ” ‘Blog’ of ‘Unnecessary’ Quotation Marks “.
Kristina–heck, you’re right, aren’t you? Spanish simply doesn’t have a possessive form that’s exactly parallel to the English apostrophe formation, does it? *boggles* That does make the infestation more weird… I guess I could see it in cases of “los 70’s” and “DVD’s” - those plurals seem to get apostrophes bestowed upon them out of fear of confusion. People don’t seem to like simply writing “80s” and “CDs” and “mind your Ps and Qs”. Makes a little bit of sense if you assume a bit of authorial insecurity… Unfortunately, that’s the foot in the door for people thinking that anything ending in an S should take an apostrophe. I guess we’ll know that the inappropriate apostrophe infection has reached stage two when we start seeing advertisements for “las tamale’s más finas” at neighborhood cocinas.
Comment by Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little — September 10, 2007 @ 11:11 pm