My eye is upon you, staffers of the Deming Way Reception Desk. I may not be able to resist taking a red pen to your otherwise inestimably useful binder of “Delivery Menu’s” the next time I’m out there.
Really, I’m powerless against the urge. I’ll be minding my own business, maybe sitting in an armchair reading a letter or scanning a work email or perusing a restaurant’s daily specials, when suddenly it appears: the Greengrocer’s Apostrophe.
It’s called the Greengrocer’s Apostrophe because, even today, it’s most commonly found on handwritten signs displayed outside shops: “50% off all banana’s,” it might say, or (semi-correctly) “pizza’s met it’s match.” (Oddly, you almost never see things like “50% off strawberrie’s.” I wonder if there’s something about an irregular plural that overrides whatever broken mental circuitry would normally produce the unnecessary apostrophe.)
This is my most profound vulnerability — my Achille’s heel, if you will. Once confronted with a Greengrocer’s Apostrophe, I simply can’t continue normally; whole sectors of my brain that were just moments ago occupied with thoughts of lunch or business or the act of driving a car suddenly flare into incandescent rage. This particular error is — and I do not exaggerate in the least here — anathema to me. It leaps off any page in eyesight to throttle my brain with the flayed, denuded remnants of my optic nerves. The memory of the sensation stays with me, raw and tender as a rash, for hours afterwards.
As far as I’m concerned, the Greengrocer’s Apostrophe (and its cousin, the Its Not a Contraction Apostrophe) is proof of the writer’s casual contempt for not only the reader but the most basic, most elementary rules of English. There are only two good excuses for scattering apostrophes willy-nilly throughout your text: 1) you are e.e. cummings; 2) you were enlisted by the government as a secret agent at the tender age of seven and consequently were too busy saving the world to attend more than ten minutes of third grade. And I’ll only accept the second excuse if you’re still licensed to kill.
Anyway, here’s the rule of thumb: apostrophes are generally used to indicate a possessive. Do the bananas belong to Bob? Then they are Bob’s bananas, and you are welcome to try them. If you are asked to “try Bob’s banana’s,” your next question should be “his banana’s what?”
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But beware “its.” Like the other possessive pronouns — “his,” “her,” “our,” etc. — “its” does not get an apostrophe, even though it’s possessive. That’s because it’s a possessive pronoun. I know, I know. “But why,” you ask, “does the word ‘it’s’ get an apostrophe in the sentence ‘it’s raining outside?'” That’s because the word “it’s” in that sentence is a contraction, and the other thing apostrophes are commonly used for is to indicate where letters have been eliminated in a contraction. “It’s” means “it is,” whereas “its” indicates possession.
When you are forming a regular plural, the word should end in “s” (or, in some irregular cases, “es,” “ies,” etc.) No apostrophe is required; save the apostrophes for the truly needy, like all those people with Irish last names.
——
There is currently a debate raging among various style manuals (raging, I might add, in only the most decorous and correct of ways; I believe high tea is somehow involved) about how best to treat a proper noun possessive ending in “S.” Is it “Bob Harris’ wife is very nice” or “Bob Harris’s wife is very nice?” And what happens if you’re talking about plural possessive proper nouns, like “We accidentally mangled the Harrises’ picket fence?”
The simple answer here is: at the present time, there is no consensus. Most of the options that aren’t blatantly ridiculous are considered correct by at least one style guide — so go wild with the possessive proper nouns, boyo’s.
Random apostrophe’s are my Kryptonite.
My eye is upon you, staffers of the Deming Way Reception Desk. I may not be able to resist taking a red pen to your otherwise inestimably useful binder of “Delivery Menu’s” the next time I’m out there.
Really, I’m powerless against the urge. I’ll be minding my own business, maybe sitting in an armchair reading a letter or scanning a work email or perusing a restaurant’s daily specials, when suddenly it appears: the Greengrocer’s Apostrophe.
It’s called the Greengrocer’s Apostrophe because, even today, it’s most commonly found on handwritten signs displayed outside shops: “50% off all banana’s,” it might say, or (semi-correctly) “pizza’s met it’s match.” (Oddly, you almost never see things like “50% off strawberrie’s.” I wonder if there’s something about an irregular plural that overrides whatever broken mental circuitry would normally produce the unnecessary apostrophe.)
This is my most profound vulnerability — my Achille’s heel, if you will. Once confronted with a Greengrocer’s Apostrophe, I simply can’t continue normally; whole sectors of my brain that were just moments ago occupied with thoughts of lunch or business or the act of driving a car suddenly flare into incandescent rage. This particular error is — and I do not exaggerate in the least here — anathema to me. It leaps off any page in eyesight to throttle my brain with the flayed, denuded remnants of my optic nerves. The memory of the sensation stays with me, raw and tender as a rash, for hours afterwards.
As far as I’m concerned, the Greengrocer’s Apostrophe (and its cousin, the Its Not a Contraction Apostrophe) is proof of the writer’s casual contempt for not only the reader but the most basic, most elementary rules of English. There are only two good excuses for scattering apostrophes willy-nilly throughout your text: 1) you are e.e. cummings; 2) you were enlisted by the government as a secret agent at the tender age of seven and consequently were too busy saving the world to attend more than ten minutes of third grade. And I’ll only accept the second excuse if you’re still licensed to kill.
Anyway, here’s the rule of thumb: apostrophes are generally used to indicate a possessive. Do the bananas belong to Bob? Then they are Bob’s bananas, and you are welcome to try them. If you are asked to “try Bob’s banana’s,” your next question should be “his banana’s what?”
On a final note, Kamagra tablets work only once you are sexually cialis order levitra aroused. It causes high level enhancement in muscle smoothness which helps in relaxation of the muscles of the heart wherein the muscles become thick, rigid or enlarged until it eventually weakens. best female viagra To simplify all these problems related to sexuality in human beings, excess salt frequently leads to dehydration, kidney dysfunction, thirst and loss of cheap viagra from uk life. If, you are also facing such issues http://www.tonysplate.com/review_escali_cibo_nutritional_scale.php cialis samples of erectile dysfunctions.
But beware “its.” Like the other possessive pronouns — “his,” “her,” “our,” etc. — “its” does not get an apostrophe, even though it’s possessive. That’s because it’s a possessive pronoun. I know, I know. “But why,” you ask, “does the word ‘it’s’ get an apostrophe in the sentence ‘it’s raining outside?'” That’s because the word “it’s” in that sentence is a contraction, and the other thing apostrophes are commonly used for is to indicate where letters have been eliminated in a contraction. “It’s” means “it is,” whereas “its” indicates possession.
When you are forming a regular plural, the word should end in “s” (or, in some irregular cases, “es,” “ies,” etc.) No apostrophe is required; save the apostrophes for the truly needy, like all those people with Irish last names.
——
There is currently a debate raging among various style manuals (raging, I might add, in only the most decorous and correct of ways; I believe high tea is somehow involved) about how best to treat a proper noun possessive ending in “S.” Is it “Bob Harris’ wife is very nice” or “Bob Harris’s wife is very nice?” And what happens if you’re talking about plural possessive proper nouns, like “We accidentally mangled the Harrises’ picket fence?”
The simple answer here is: at the present time, there is no consensus. Most of the options that aren’t blatantly ridiculous are considered correct by at least one style guide — so go wild with the possessive proper nouns, boyo’s.
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