That Pesky Apostrophe! - Wordsmith.org

I feel very strongly about this issue.

But I could not possibly compete with what Lynne Truss (From "Eats, Shoots and Leaves: A Zero Tolerance Guide to Punctuation) has to say about the apostrophe:

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The Tractable Apostrophe

The English language first picked up the apostrophe in the 16th century. The word in Greek means �turning away�, and hence �omission� or �elision�. In classical texts, it was used to mark dropped letters, as in t�cius for �tertius�; and when English printers adopted it, this was still its only function. Remember that comical pedant Holofernes in Love�s Labour�s Lost saying, �you find not the apostraphas, and so miss the accent�? [...]

In Shakespeare�s time, an apostrophe indicated omitted letters, which meant Hamlet could say with supreme apostrophic confidence: �Fie on�t! O fie!� ; ��Tis a consummation devoutly to be wish�d� ; and even, �I am too much i� the sun�

If only the apostrophe�s life has stayed that simple.

At some point in the 17th century, however, printers started to intrude an apostrophe before the �s� in singular possessive cases (�the girl�s dress�). [...]

Then, in the 18th century, printers started to put it after plural possessives as well (�the girls� dresses).

Some historians of grammar claim, incidentally, that the original possessive use of the apostrophe signified a contraction of the historic �his�; and personally, I believed this attractive theory for many years, simply on the basis of knowing Ben Jonson�s play Sejanus, his Fall and reasoning that this was self-evidently halfway to �Sejanus�s Fall.� [...]

However, there are other historians of grammar who say this Love-His-Labour-Is-Lost explanation is ignorant conjecture [...] but the rationalisation falls down noticeably when applied to female possessives because �Elizabeth Her Reign�, would have ended up logically as �Elizabeth�r Reign� [...].

The Main 8 Uses of an Apostrophe

1. The apostrophe indicates a possessive in a singular noun:

The boy�s hat.

When the possessor is plural, but does not end in an �s�, the apostrophe similarly precedes the �s�:

The children�s playground.

I apologise if you know all this, but the point is many, many people do not. Why else would they open a large play area for children, hang up a sign saying �Giant Kid�s Playground� and wonder why people stay away? (Answer : everyone is scared of the Giant Kid).

2. It indicates time or quantity.

In one week�s time.

3. It indicates the omission of numerals in dates:

The summer of �68

4. It indicates the omisssion of letters [most commonly in contractions]:

Who�s she? She�s mother�s friend.
It�s rainging : they�re saying in.
We can�t go to Jo�burg
She�d�ve had the cat-o�-nine-tails, I s�pose.

5. It indicates non-standard English, as in D.H. Lawrence�s Lady Chatterley�s Loer:

�Appen yer�d better �ave this key, an� Ah min
fend for t� bods some other road...�

�Why don�t your speak ordinary English?� Lady Chatterly inquires, saucily.

6. It features in Irish names. Again, the theory that this is a simple contraction of �of� (as in John o� Gaunt) � is pure misconception. �O� in Irish names is an anglicisation of �ua�, meaning grandson.

O�Neill
O�Casey

7. It indicates the plurals of letters:

How many m�s in accommodation?

8. It indicates plurals of words.

The do�s and don�t�s
There are too many but�s and and�s at the
beginning of sentences these days.

William Hartston, who writes the �Beachcomber� column in the Express, has come up with the truly inspired story of Apostropher Royal, an ancient and honorable post inaugurated in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. His story goes that a humble greengroser was delivering potatoes [...] and happened to notice a misplaced apostrophe in a royal decree. When he pointed it out, the Queen immediately created the office of Apostropher Royal to control the quanlity and distribution of apostrophes [...].

Readers� examples of poor punctuation

I wrote an article for the Daily Telegraph hoping to elicit a few punctuation horror stories [...]. The following is just a tiny selection of the examples I received :

1. Singular possessive instead of simple plural:

Next week: nouns and apostrophe�s (BBC website advertising a grammar course for
children).

2. Singular possessive instead of plural possessive

Pupil�s entrance (on a very selective school, presumably)

3. Plural possessive instead of singular possessive.

Bobs� Motors

4. No possessive where possessive is required:

Citizens Advice Bureau

5. Dangling expectations caused by incorrect pluralisation.

Cyclist�s only (his only what?)
Please replace the trolly�s (the trolly�s what?)

6. Unintentional sense from unmarked possessive

Dicks in-tray (try not to think about it)

7. Someone knows an apostrophe is required... but where, oh where?

It need�nt be a pane (on a van advertising
discount glass)
Ladie�s hairdresser
Childrens� education (in a letter from the
head of education at the National Union of
Teachers).

9. Apostrophes put in place names/proper names:

Dear Mr Steven�s
Glady�s (badge on salesgirl)

10. It�s or Its� instead of Its:

Recruitment at it�s best (slogan of
employment agency).
Welcome to the British Library, it�s services
and catalogues (reader introduction pamphlet
at British Library).

11. Plain illiteracy

Your 21 Today! (on birthday card)
�...giving the full name and title of the
person who�s details are given in Section 02�
(on UK passport application form)

12. Commas instead of apostrophes:

apple,s
orange,s
grape,s (all thankfully on the same stall)

13. Signs that have given up trying:

Reader offer
Customer toilet
Author photograph

Using the possesssive apostrophe and �s� in names ending in �s�

Current guides to punctuation (including that ultimate authority Fowler�s Modern English Usage) state that with modern names ending in �s� (including biblical names, and any foreign name with an unpronunced final �s�), the �s� is required after the apostrophe:

Keats�s poems
Lynne Truss�s book
Alexander Dumas�s The Three Musketeers

With names from the ancient world, it is not:

Archimedes� screw
Achilles� heel

If the name ends in an �iz� sound, an exception is made:

Moses� tablets
Bridges� score

And an exception is always made for Jesus:

Jesus� disciples

However, these are matters of style and preference that are definitely not set in stone [...]. Consulting a dozen or so recently published punctuation guides, I can report that they contain minor disagreements on virtually all aspects of the above [...]. When many people wrote to ask why St Thomas� Hospital in London has no �s� after the apostrophe, I did feel that the answer must echo Dr Johnson�s when asked to explain his erroneous definition of a pastern: �Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.� [...]

The problem is that institutions, towns, colleges, families, companies and brands have authority over their own spelling and punctuation, (which is often historic).

The Double Possessive

It is time to confess that I have for many years struggled with one of the lesser rules of the apostrophe. I refer to the �double apostrophe� [...]:

�Elton John, a friend of the footballer�s, said...�
�Elton John, a friend of the Beckhams� said...�

[...] Why isn�t it �a friend of the footballer�? Doesn�t the construction �of the� do away with the need for another possessive?? [...] Why do the Beckhams need to possess Elton John twice?

Turn to Robert Burchfield�s third edition of Fowler�s Modern English Usage (1998) [where] the double possessive is calmly explained. Do I have any objection to �a friend of mine� or �a friend of yours�? Well, no. [...] And yes, you would say �a cousin of my mother�s.�

A friend of the footballer�s is the same thing. The only time you drop the possessive is when, instead of being involved with an animate being, you are �a lover of the British Museum�, because, obviously, the British Museum does not � and never can � love you back.

The Law of Conservation of Apostrophes

In Beachcomber�s hilarious columns about the Apostropher Royal in The Express, a certain perversely comforting law is often reiterated: the Law of the Conservation of Apostrophes. A heresy since the 13th century, this law states that a balance exists in nature: �For every apostrophe omitted from an it�s, there is an extra one put into an its.� Thus the number of apostrophes in circulation remains constant, even if this means we have double the reason to go and bang our heads against a wall.

[...] Until the 19th century one of the legitimate uses of the apostrophe was to separate a plural �s� from a foreign word ending in a vowel, and this prevent confusion about pronunciation. Thus, you would see in an 18th-century text folio�s or quarto�s � and it looks rather elegant. I just wish a different mark had been employed (or even invented) for the purpose, to take the strain off our long-suffering [apostrophe].

In fact, moves are afoot among certain punctuation visionaries to revive the practice of using the tilde (the Spanish accent we all have on our keyboards which looks like this: ~).

Thus: quarto~s and folio~s, not to mention logo~s, pasta~s, ouzo~s and banana~s. For the time being, however, the guardians of usage frown very deeply on anyone writing �quarto�s�.

As Professor Loreto Todd tartly remarks in her excellent Cassell�s Guide to Punctuation (1955), �This usage was correct once, just as it was once considered correct to drink tea from a saucer.�