Discussion

By Sean Smyth on Aug 18, 2017

Frank
As a humble British'er I feel the need to contribute. I don't know why I get enraged by the misplaced apostrophe on a shop front, but I do! Its' awful!

As you know St Paul's Cathedral has it's apostrophe, St Pauls Society doesn't and the St Pauls district of Bristol doesn't (well sometimes it does).

I like the symbols that lurk in compositor's cases, when used correctly.

So as ever thank's for putting us right on language, we always like it when American's correct English.

Apostrophes Rule (Apostrophe's don't!) Where can I sign up to help the grammar Banksy's?

By John Zarwan on Aug 18, 2017

There was a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal that talked about Google maps having trouble with the apostrophe's (sic) in place names in France

By Keith McMurtrie on Aug 18, 2017

How funny but sadly so very true. Just like the lowly apostrophe, we face our own word related battle every day.

Our name is Tharstern.

Not Tharsten or Tharston or, most frequently, Tharstens.

But hey, in the words of William Shakespeare…”What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”.

So I suppose we shouldn’t mind, as long as you love us like Juliet loved Romeo, you can call us what you want. ;-)

By Jason Calfo on Aug 18, 2017

Frank,

I am surprised you did not address the other catastrophe related to the apostrophe — and that is the proper way to typeset it (or key it in). All too often we see the (') foot mark as opposed to the proper font specific character(‘), even in the media!

It's just another degradation of the all important apostrophe.

By Andrew Tribute on Aug 18, 2017

Frank

You and I are old curmudgeons and do not understand the new world of writing. Social media is changing it all and this is just one step on the way to eliminating all forms of punctuation, real spelling, etc and replacing everything with emoticons. It is the next release of Esperanto as the world's (sorry I used an apostrophe) language.

By Chris Lynn on Aug 18, 2017

This is a case of an American pot calling an English kettle black. As this 2013 article (https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/05/apostrophe-battle/315175/) points out, the US Domestic Names committee has removed over 250,000 apostrophes from American place names - dwarfing the transgressions that Frank deprecates.

But I agree with Lynn Truss (author of 'Eats, Shoots & Leaves'), who said it best:
“Proper punctuation is both the sign and the cause of clear thinking.”
and:
“If you still persist in writing, "Good food at it's best", you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.”