This country is slowly but surely being overwhelmed by an invasion of apostrophes.
I’m not sure how they came or why their numbers are increasing, but I’m seeing them everywhere now, in places where they have no business at all: in pluralizations. For example: “dad’s”, “kid’s”, “mom’s”, “television’s”, etc. It’s like fingernails on a blackboard.
Up until last night, I’d suffered in silence. But I can take it no more. My restraint burst when I saw these little gems on a restaurant menu:
“Specialty Pizza’s”
“Jalapeno’s”
“Green Pepper’s”
*shudder*
How would the Engli’sh ’speaking countrie’s of thi’s world fare if word’s with ’s in them were alway’s written with apostrophe’s? We’d all drown in a ’sea of u’sele’s’s tick mark’s, awa’sh in ’su’spended comma’s floating high above ’sentence’s like little balloon’s of ’stuttering ’sen’sele’s’sne’s’s.
No.
Let the madness end. Let us remember a simple rule: If in doubt, leave it out.
Seriously.
There are three main reasons to use apostrophes:
1) To indicate possessive case of a proper noun. E.g.: Bill’s, Ted’s, Susan’s
2) To form a contraction. E.g.: Can’t, Won’t, Didn’t
3) To pluralize lower case letters. E.g.: p’s, q’s, a’s.
That’s it.
It’s debatable whether you need to pluralize acronyms like CD or DVD using an apostrophe; technically it’s unnecessary, though common use is overturning that rule.
But to pluralize words like mom, dad, pizza, cheese, fork, chicken, knock, way, two, and the like, just tack an “s” on the end: dads, pizzas, cheeses, forks, chickens, knocks, ways, twos. It’s that simple.
I may be the only one griping, but I’m willing to live with that if I can in some small way help keep our written language from being overrun by rampant overuse of apostrophes.
I know you’re serious, but I’m laughing. As a former English major, if we made a mistake with an apostrophe, our English professors would go mad! I understand your frustration though. People tend to put an apostrophe where no apostrophe should go. Loved the blog.
@surprised – I’m mostly just venting because of what I read on that menu last night. I can remain silent no longer!
I am ‘so glad that you can expres’s your’self with ‘such wonderful word’s.
The funny thing about the menu was inconsistant with the use of apostrophe’s
)
@wifey — but their pizza wa’s really ‘stupendou’s, wa’sn’t it? Here, some extras for you: ”””
That one paragraph reads like you have a lisp. Fun rant!
That is absolutely one of my biggest pet peeves. I threaten to go around with white-out tape and cover up all useless apostrophes in the grocery store.
I have an entire blog devoted to this topic. Feel free to send me a photo of the next apostrophe catastrophe you find!
@WeaselMomma – I should have found more “s” words.
@cuz – I’m with you. Let’s start an underground movement. PEUA – People for the Eradication of Unnecessary Apostrophes
@Becky – that’s great! I never saw that before. I have a link to a blog about Unnecessary Quotation Marks, but didn’t know about yours. I’m adding the link right now. Thanks!
I thought I was the king of using apostrophe’s but after reading this I feel much better!
Ohhhhh, I’m so glad you gravitated to this subject, I’ve noticed it myself and it has become epidemic. For years, I’ve noticed what I call “the shrinking vocabulary of society”. Have you ever noticed how often the word, “great” has been used to express something that is remotely more than amusing? Maybe I’m too attentive but some days it can be almost painful.
@Tyler – nah, there are a ton of people who misuse apostrophes. With whom some I happen to very close.
@Anon – give me enough time and I’ll cover every grammatical pet peeve I have. I think I might cover eggcorns next.
I am SO with you on this. As a teacher, I really did not see this much until the past few year’s (just kidding on that last apostrophe). It drives me crazy that my students, who are typically the laziest in the bunch would go out of their way to add a very unnecessary apostrophe to every word that ends in an s! BTW, I recently found the Blog of Unnecessary Quotation Marks. It’s hilarious; check it out!