A Sad Day for the Apostrophe
Posted Fri, 2010-03-05 16:32 by Emily Caryl
Dear Good People of Internet Land:
Allow me to introduce the apostrophe. It's like a comma, only taller.
Let's just take a moment to admire the word: apostrophe. A postrophe. The first 'p' has a hard pa sound like posse, posterity, and postulate. The last 'p' forms the fi sound like Phish and phenomenal. And, in the middle, there's this bizarre 'ostro' which could be a word all by itself.
"Those boots are so ostro! They look just like a pair I had in 1979."
"This cold rainy weather has left me feeling pretty ostro today."
So why is it such a sad day for the apostrophe? Because the apostrophe has got to be the most misused punctuation mark in the entire English language. I feel for the apostrophe. Everybody knows when to use a period. Nobody screws up the question mark. Even the comma isn't slaughtered as often as the apostrophe.
Your Honor, I present the evidence:
In fact, in my quest to find real life Internet examples of apostrophe exploitation, I found not ONE but TWO blogs entirely devoted to apostrophic misappropriation. I'll wait here while you go check them out. I know. It's pretty bad. I can hear your gasps and cries of alarm from here.
I beg of you, Good People of Internet Land. For the sake of all that is good and right in the world, honor the apostrophe! Love the apostrophe! Embrace the apostrophe! And stop using the apostrophe to indicate that a word is plural!
Now let's review:
Correct: cars, trucks, and buses
Correct: Cars Trucks Buses 1
Incorrect: car's, truck's, and buses'
Correct: girls, girls, girls
Incorrect: girl's, girl's, girl's
And since I'm already busy complaining explaining: It's is an abbreviation, of sorts, for the phrase it is (a contraction for you fancy types). Please do not confuse it with the word its, a tiny little possessive pronoun.
It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
It's about time!
"Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.
The heart has its beaches, its homeland and thoughts of its own.
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the morning brings.
But the heart has its seasons, its evenings and songs of its own." 2
And now that I'm listening to the Grateful Dead, I can't continue to type. Must. Dance. I can multi-task. But not that well.
Thank's for listening. Just kidding.
1. "Cars Trucks Buses," written by Page McConnell, performed by Phish with Michael Ray on trumpet, New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, New Orleans, LA, April 26, 1996.
2. "Eyes of the World," written by Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia, performed by the Grateful Dead, Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City, NJ, August 6, 1974.
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