Grammar #fail

Apostrophe abuse at its best…..

Cry the abused apostrophe

Of all the punctuation marks in English grammar, the apostrophe (‘) is the probably the most abused of them all.

Now, while I don’t profess to be an expert in grammar, I’m a stickler for good punctuation and it irks me on a daily basis when I see how loosely the apostrophe is used on billboards, on TV and in print adverts.

The apostrophe has a number of uses, including possession, making something plural, showing plural possession, parenthesis and indicating contraction or omission.

Generally people are pretty good at using the apostrophe as a contraction (in words like can’t, won’t, shouldn’t and ma’am).

But when it comes to possession and plural nouns (and particularly plural possession combined) people tend to have a more lackadaisical approach to using an apostrophe, even if one is not required.

The main culprits are acronyms like CD, SMS and DVD – where people will wrongly refer to DVD’s, SMS’s and CD’s in their plural forms.

Even worse though, is the use of “greengrocer’s apostrophes” in nouns like camera’s, bath’s and phone’s to show the plural form.

Although they’re meant to be read as plural forms, they actually read as singular possession, which just confuses everything when these words are used in sentences and not standing alone.

In the case of plural possession, the apostrophe is meant to go after the “s” in the plural noun (for example: “The learners’ books are burning” – the books belonging to more than one learner).

And with singular nouns that end in “s”, the correct punctuation for singular possession is Jones’s and not Jones’.

It’s disturbing that these incorrect standards are being widely adopted by marketing organisations – including a number of big-name advertising and public relations agencies in South Africa.

The question is whether you can blame laziness for the abuse of the apostrophe or write it off to ignorance of good English grammar.

In any event, it does demand that organisations take a closer look at the communications that they put out and ensure that they don’t ruin their reputations with something as simple as bad punctuation.