Apostrophe Crime Wave
I’ve got to give it to Brian Sack, the author of the hilarious leather pants eBay ad that gave him 15 well-deserved minutes of fame: DKNY Men’s Leather Pants I Unfortunately Own
He recently posted about the apostrophe crime wave that seems to be sweeping our nation: Apostrophe Crime Wave
He beat me to the punch here. I have wanted to write about this grammar crime for some time now. Everywhere I look I see people who add apostrophes to words in order to form the plural noun. But guess what folks? Apostrophes are for possessive nouns, not plural nouns. What is up with this glad-happy addition of the apostrophe?
Here’s something fun to do. Look around over the next week. See how many times people write things like:
“Banana’s for sale”
“Free camera’s to those who open checking accounts”
“Do you like my oven’s?”
Keep track of how many of these grammatical abominations you see and write back next weekend. There will be a prize for the winner.
Facebook
Flickr
GoodReads
Twitter
I’m sure this is old news, but check out Eats Shoots and Leaves.
I never felt like a bigger dork than the day I laughed out loud on the bus at a book about grammar.
Hi Liana – this is one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to grammar. I’m also appalled at how many senior execs in my company do that in their memos. My other huge pet peeve is that most people do not know how to use a gerund phrase (putting a possessive before an “ing” verb)- makes me violent. Obviously I’m a bit high strung if that’s all it takes, but I take my grammar very seriously!
Roni
[...] officer annoyingly often at times. I’m sure that I’m not the only one who finds the misuse of the apostrophe to be as grating as fingernails on a [...]