Apparently I missed an important holiday yesterday; it was National Apostrophe Day. Or maybe not, since one blog told me that, while another one I found by searching said that National Apostrophe Day is February 21, because that is President’s’ Day [sic]. Anyway, the misuse of apostrophes is one of every grammarian’s favorite topics, so let's take a minute to explore it. In this case, we’re talking about misuse of the punctuation mark called apostrophe, not the figure of speech.
Examples of the punctuation error abound; however, one of the most frequent is the its-it’s error. (Wait, is that how the ice cream treat was named?) For the rare individual who doesn’t know about this one, the point is that even though we use apostrophes to form possessives in English, its as a possessive is the one time that it’s incorrect to add this punctuation. Here’s the explanation from Stan Carey, an Irishman who writes the Sentence First blog:
To summarise the difference: it’s is always a contraction of it is or it has. Usually the former. Keep this front and centre, and you’ll greatly reduce your chances of ever getting it wrong. Its is the possessive form of it – more fully, the third person neuter possessive pronoun. So you might write of a solitary ant: “It’s lost its way.”
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Lynne Truss, in Eats, Shoots & Leaves, writes that this error “sets off a simple Pavlovian ‘kill’ response in the average stickler”.
(You’ll notice his British spelling; that’s another topic altogether so let’s just leave it alone for today.)
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Then we have the craziness about whether or not to use an apostrophe to form the plural of an abbreviation or acronym. I’ve found equally authoritative experts on both sides of this question, so I’m not going to take a stand on it. Do whatever you want!
If you’re still interested in apostrophes but prefer to be amused rather than annoyed, you can browse the funnies at http://www.apostropheabuse.com/ and http://www.apostrophecatastrophes.com/, where people send in photos of the most egregious examples they encounter. If you’re more of a visual learner, check out the flow chart at http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe.
Or you could purchase Frank Zappa’s album “Apostrophe”, originally recorded in 1974 and remastered in 1995. To manage your website, you could try Apostrophe: “a content management system designed for maximum flexibility with a minimal learning curve. The interface is ergonomic, all content-editing is performed in-context.” (Don’t get me started on inappropriate hyphens or the semicolon error in that second sentence.)
Just don't ever count on your spell checker to get it right; even when the companion grammar checking function is turned on, you'll be in hot water very quickly.
Clearly, I could go on and on, but I’d rather hear from you. Seen any great apostrophe oopsies recently? Meanwhile, National Punctuation Day is coming in September – several sources seem to agree on that one, so stay tuned.
