The Apostrophe Protection Society was started in 2001 by John Richard 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.”
Brilliant idea. And there’s even a message board for questions and discussion.
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Cool! Thanks for the link. I’ll point those who make the its/it’s mistake towards it! That one just about drives me round the bend and is so easy to avoid if given even a moment’s thought.
The apostrophe crisis has gotten so bad that I even catch myself putting them in wrong places. The good news, though, is that I manage to correct them before I go too far…
I was helping with a booth at a Fall Festival last night and couldn’t help but notice that one of the signs directing people to other booths had an apostrophe in ‘booths.’ I ended up putting a white label over the apostrophe…
Ah, I never grow tired of this comic. I was out with a friend one day last week and a cafe had a sign that said “The kitchen close’s at 2PM”. I can’t believe that people still make mistakes like that. My friends are used to me getting enraged at misplaced apostrophes these days though
This cartoon and comments from other aware folks help ease my chronic frustration of the misuse of the apostrophe. I really started to notice the employment of the superfluous apostrophe over a decade ago on Ma ‘n’ Pa store signs, etc., but now it makes it to print on backs of DVDs, in newspapers and magazines, on mass-produced signs, and more! Arrgghhh! It drives me crazy. I am also annoyed at the misuse and neglect of the hyphen! For example, it should be seen in “cold-brewed” … right? I am far from perfect, and would like to truly know all the rules, but glaring errors, like the ones shared in the comments above, are mighty irritating. Thanks for sharing, fellow English-lovers! Oh, and please correct me if I am wrong on any of these accounts! A friend bought me a greeting card showing two women talking on the front. One says to the other, “So, where’s your birthday party at?” The other replies, “Don’t use a preposition at the end of a sentence.” The first one then responds, “Where’s your birthday party at, bitch?”
Bella (in Comments) should note that her last sentence, to be grammatically correct, should read “My friends are used to my getting enraged about misplaced apostrophes these days, though” instead of what she’s put. In my revision of her sentence I am using ‘my’ as the possessive case (because it’s not her that her friends are used to but rather to her getting enraged …). I have substituted ‘about’ for ‘at’ for accuracy reasons and have included a comma before ‘though’ to signify that this word is an interjection. Otherwise, nice one, Bella!
I despaired when I saw a sign outside a pub advertising a football match between Leed’s United and Valencia.
However, the links to the Society don’t seem to work and my email to the organiser has bounced back – does anyone have up-to-date contact details for the society? Thanks in advance! Sorry, thank’s in advance…
Thanks, Phil, for the lesson! I TRUST no one here would ever take a vain personal offense at getting corrected. We can all learn from it. Now I need to correct my last post! I should have written that I feel frustration OVER, not OF, the misuse of the apostrophe. I want to use English properly always, not most of the time. Yes, I am a bit neurotic!
I agree. If you want to hear my “Apostrophe Apostasy” song, click here: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=367678&songID=7301555
Danielle should note that correct use of English is not confined to the apostrophe.
“Gotten” is an abberation of North American English and is not acceptable in English English.