Earlier this year, I was reading a major metropolitan paper, and I was shocked to find an apostrophe error on the front page of the life section. ("Glacier's decapitated the city's hilltops.") Apostrophe abuse doesn't seem to be a common problem among professional reporters and copy editors, but sometimes we slip.
For example, the difference between it's and its seems so minor that an error can be easy to create or overlook if we're not paying close attention. Another common apostrophe mistake (and one that I've seen in a local paper recently) is the tendency to add an apostrophe when adding an s to make a proper noun plural. (Mr. and Mrs. Wilson and their son Jacob = the Wilsons, not the Wilson's, right?)
I think when we were in elementary school, our apostrophe use probably was perfect. But after that, when we were forced to move at a quicker pace, we became a little less careful. In fact, apostrophe abuse has become so rampant that it can be amusing and confusing. Check out an entire site dedicated to documenting the problem.
Look around you, and I feel confident you will spot an apostrophe error in the next couple of days. (I only hope it's not in a newspaper.) Could any punctuation mark be more abused? With an increased apostrophe awareness, I hope we can eliminate errors.
~ Elizabeth
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Elizabeth,
Congratulations! You're officially a blogger!
Notice the apostrophe above.
Hear, hear, I am all in favor of stamping out apostrophe abuse. Your Wilson's/Wilsons example especially common, I think, when it's a thing and not a person being pluralized.
For instance, grunge was big in the 90s, not the "90's." And in school I got straight As, not straight A's. (Well, actually I didn't, but you get the point...)
Rob,
You bring up good points. Yes,90's is wrong, but don't forget that we should move the apostrophe instead of eliminating it: Grunge was big in the '90s.
And if I weren't such a nerdy copy editor who has learned a few things from some wise editors, I wouldn't be able to tell you that buried deep inside the stylebook, there's a rule regarding straight A's. At the very end of the apostrophe rules, just before the bracket rules, there's an entry titled "plurals of a single letter." Believe it or not, when it comes to plurals of a single letter, the AP wants us to use an apostrophe. With so many rules,(not all of them logical) it's no wonder we get confused.
Ah, well...sure, if you follow the AP Style Guide, I suppose those are technically true... I prefer to follow the Mentzer Rules of Style...
The punctuation mark I hate to see abused, particularly in press releases or contributed columns — but more disturbingly in local copy — is the exclamation point. Why do people have to yell? (no offense to wdh copy desk)
I don't know if it is just me, but it often just looks foolish if it doesn't come at the end of a expletive-laced diatribe by a local official. Alas, we don't see those often enough.
Multer,
I used to include exclamation points in some of my GO! center headlines, but I think I've learned my lesson.
I just Googled punctuation humor and couldn't find anything. How disappointing.
Brian O.
Rob,
When you were in school, you "got (as) straight As" what?
— Mark T.
Post a Comment