Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Oh those mysterious apostrophes.

I so wish that more people had paid attention in English classes. The apostrophe seems to be so confusing for so many.

I saw a big, new, temporary sign outside a restaurant exclaiming they had "twenty-five new omelet's."

I am acquainted, through my Home Owner Association, with a nice gentlemen who sends up updates on the work the landscaping company is doing. In mid-December they "blew out the walks and patio's....and will clean up the next few visit's." I have noticed the apostrophes occurring less and less in his reports. Don't know if he is realizing they are not needed, or just getting tired of putting them in.

Signs in stores are notorious for misplaced apostrophes: "employee's only," "please don't open box's," and "10 item's or less" (and, yes, it should be "fewer" too).

There is a service station that made me feel all warm when I first noticed its name. I thought "Hooray, someone cares." The marquee says it is "Russ's." So few actually know what to do when a word ends in s, and because of that the rules will change to account for those who didn't know what was actually correct. Right or wrong, that's the way it is.

3 comments:

Great Grandma Lin said...

good point

Kay said...

I'm glad you're here to instruct everyone on proper grammar and punctuation, Jo. I know I've made my share of boo boos in my time.

Sally Wessely said...

Thanks for stopping by my blog. I loved what you had to say here. I remember taking a test for a job one time. They said I had a mistake on the "grammar" part of the test when I corrected this sentence : "Jameses car was parked in front of the building." I put: " James' car was parked in front of the building." Wrong, they said. They insisted it must read: "James's car..." I took them to task on the matter and brought in my old Harbrace College Handbook to prove my point. They didn't hire me. :)