Banning apostrophes?

I'd be the one filling them in with a marker pen :D

Well, I can see their point — I live in a city whose official name starts with an apostrophe (and contains a hyphen for good measure) and that certainly defeats some forms I have had to fill in. But that’s a matter of lazy programming, surely, not a reason to change the name.

If you put my postcode into the post office database which Dutch companies use to generate mailing addresses, it’s the version with the apostrophe that comes up, even though the city council itself uses the informal, punctuation-free name in its own letterheads and internet material.

And a follow up quiz: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/07/apostrophes-possession-c...

I love eating Grandma and pets.
Don't be a psycho - use commas.

>4 lilithcat: I was going to post the link to the quiz too!
I got 2 wrong but they were the ones unrelated to usage of apostrophes, haha

I walked past a gym today that announced "kid's classes": I wonder who's the lucky kid that gets to have classes on their own haha

>7 ScarletBea: People just make unnecessary trouble for themselves when they design signs. Like the primary school I passed where there was a row of parking spaces with a sign over it saying “Teacher’s parking only” — puzzling rather than necessarily wrong, but “Parking for teachers only” would have been just as easy to fit on a sign and doesn’t get you into any pointless discussions about whether it would apply if there are teachers who car-share or who park more than one car. On the other hand, teachers often enjoy making fun of people who get into apostrophe trouble, so maybe the school maintenance people were just trolling…

Back when my mother still taught Middle School English, the English teachers insisted on checking all school announcements before they went out. It's hard to answer a kid who wants to know, "Why should I learn this stuff if even the principal gets it wrong?"

>9 MarthaJeanne: By way of background, I am a journalism major who had to memorize Strunk and White which should tell you something about my age. I am also an attorney who reads and rereads my briefs out loud to ensure that every comma is in the right place.

Unfortunately, my son hit middle school at about the time that the teaching of grammar became superfluous. Your comment reminded me of the arguments we would have around the kitchen table as I read the reports/essays he would write for assignments in various classes: history, health, etc. Back then, he never did understand why I would make him rewrite an assignment because of incorrect punctuation or grammar when the teacher did not consider those in grading.

When my (youngest) son was in middle school I had to teach him what direct and indirect objects were in English so that he could get his German homework right. It took a while for him to agree that it mattered whether the boy threw the dog a ball or the boy threw a ball the dog.

See, I never understood direct and indirect objects in English until after I'd taken German! My mother had tried to explain the difference between lay and lie, and I didn't get it until after I took German.

Mark your calendars!

International Apostrophe Day is coming: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/international-apostrophe-days-lifesaving-kathy-la...

>13 lilithcat: Can't see it.

>14 MarthaJeanne:

Try this?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/international-apostrophe-days-lifesaving-kathy-la...

Another episode in the North Yorkshire saga — https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/02/yorkshire-apostrophe-row...

>15 lilithcat: They still require a sign in.

>17 MarthaJeanne:

That's odd. I didn't need to sign in (I don't have a LinkedIn account). I wonder if it's because you're outside the U.S.?

>19 supercell: Tried that. Didn't work for me.

New twist: the rise of the (incorrect) apostrophe in German: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/07/germany-influence-of-english-idiot...

More apostrophe news: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/jun/11/a-posh-trophe-joke-wins-london-sch...

>5 WholeHouseLibrary: Haven't seen on of those in awhile! Needed a laugh. Hilarious!