AT EASE WITH THESE APOSTROPHES

by John M. Floyd

British author Lynne Truss says one of the things that prompted her to write Eats, Shoots & Leaves was her sighting of a poster on the side of a city bus, announcing the Hugh Grant/Sandra Bullock movie “Two Weeks Notice.” The missing apostrophe was apparently more than Ms. Truss could bear. She decided to issue a wake-up call on how to use the King’s English, and the result was the most delightful book on punctuation ever written.

Before I proceed, I have a confession to make: I wasn’t fond of English in high school and college, and would rather have taken poison than diagram a sentence. Somewhere along the way, I saw the light. Now — whooda thunkit? — I actually enjoy studying things like word usage and sentence construction and punctuation. And, while my interest does not qualify me to be a grammar policeman and has certainly never led me (thank God) to try to write a style manual, I can at least understand why Ms. Truss became so annoyed.

Faithful readers of this blog might recall that I recently tackled — or at least grabbed and held onto for awhile — the subject of using and misusing semicolons. The truth is, that injustice pales in comparison to the misuse of apostrophes. Probably because there just aren’t as many semicolons running around out there. Periods or commas often fill in for semicolons and do a passable job. Apostrophes, though . . . well, those are harder to avoid.

Besides, apostrophes seem pretty simple. Just stick one in before or after an “s” now and then, and maybe in the place of an omitted letter or letters as in “didn’t“ or ”should’ve,” right? But sometimes there’s more to it than that. I think the reason apostrophes are so often misused is because they do seem so simple.

One problem is that they’re often inserted where they don’t belong. How many times have you seen a mailbox that says something like THE ANDERSON’S? I wouldn’t argue the fact that the box probably belongs to the Anderson family, but the sign on it should be a mere plural: THE ANDERSONS. No apostrophe. You might laugh, but I see this in beginners’ manuscripts all the time: “We asked the Cooper’s over for dinner.” The Cooper’s what? Lawyer? Neighbor? Housekeeper?

In her book Ms. Truss gives several good examples of the public misuse of apostrophes. Here are some signs she mentions having seen: TROUSER’S REDUCED, BOBS’ MOTORS, MENS COAT’S. One was a sign in a park that said GIANT KID’S PLAYGROUND. The apostrophe indeed indicates a possessive, but it’s misplaced. (She says she wasn’t surprised that the playground was empty: everyone was probably scared of the giant kid.)

An example from my own life is the name of a shopping center near the Crossgates subdivision, where I live. The sign in front of the group of shops says, in three-foot-high letters, CROSSGATE’S LANDING. (I kid you not.) I can only assume it’s alerting us that Mr. Crossgate will soon be approaching by air, since it makes no sense otherwise.

I should mention here that most editors’ tolerance for apostrophe misuse runs pretty low. Pat Walsh says, in 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published, “For the love of Pete, learn how to use an apostrophe. It is not hard and it is screwed up so often it is discouraging.”

Granted, some of the rules on its use are a little vague. One involves the possessive apostrophe following a word already ending in an “s”. Although there are a few exceptions, Strunk and White say you should usually add another “s” after the apostrophe. (Indiana Jones’s partner.) Other experts have said that final “s” should never be added. I’ve even heard that you should not add the final “s” only if the word that follows it begins with an “s”. (Indiana Jones’ sidekick.) Confusing, isn’t it? So when do you obey some of these nitpicky rules and when do you ignore them and decide for yourself? My opinion is, so many authorities contradict each other on this matter, we’re often safe to make our own decisions. When it looks right on paper and sounds right when spoken aloud, it’ll probably work.

Besides, according to Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Beachcomber’s Law of Conservation of Apostrophes 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. (By the way, its/it’s is the one punctuation mistake you really and truly don’t ever want to make, in a manuscript. It seems to defy the rules, since a possessive usually requires an apostrophe, and that’s probably the reason this error shows up so much — but commit it at your own risk. To quote Lynne Truss one last time, “If you . . . 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.”)

Anyhow, that’s my take, along with Ms. Truss’s considerable assistance, on this pesky little mark of punctuation. I wish I could say I saved the best for last, but I didn’t — I’m closing with a piece of my own light verse:

Some writing errors
Give me fits —
Like “who’s” for “whose”
And “it’s” for “its.”

If that reaction
Seems excessive,
Say “Contraction,”
Then “Possessive.”

To get the two
Confused ensures
The prose that’s published
Won’t be you’res.

Or mine.