Pardon Me, I Think you Dropped an Apostrophe
If you’re a stickler for sentence structure, steer clear of Birmingham. The second-largest city in England has opted to drop all apostrophes from its street signs, citing the hooks in the air as “confusing and old-fashioned.”
So what are Birmingham’s primary school teachers to do from now on? Allow their charges to make “its” stand in for “it is” on a moment’s notice?
Yes, I’m one of those sticklers, one who is appalled that her daughter will soon be learning to read and write in a world that’s gotten lax on language. Do you know why the apostrophe is confusing in Birmingham? I would hazard a guess that it’s due to a lack of education in the schools and a lack of sticklers on the streets. Because the best way to make punction confusing is to ignore it.
How am I supposed to teach my daughter to spell when every closing sign says they’re open “’til midnite” and the post office posts a notice warning you not to “loose your keys”? I’m not sure if I should tell her we’re eating at Joe’s (denoting there is
one owner, a guy named Joe) or Joes’ (where there are two proprietors
with a common moniker).
We all make mistakes – especially now that fast fingers over the keyboard have taken much of the thought out of the process. But if the signmakers, who are paid to put their focus on proper sign making, are too confused, so are the people reading them!
Want to make it all less confusing? Keep putting your pressure on the public – and the schools – to keep punctuating. Or perhaps they’d prefer we check out Birminghams’ business center rather than Birmingham’s?
Image/Source: MSNBC
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I wonder what Lynne Truss has to say about this. I just found out there is a Apostrophe Protection Society!
Militant grammarian: I knew this would happen on a piece about punctuation! Thanks for the catch; I need to fix it!
No throwing, only mea culpas.
I actually often find the opposite is true with apostrophes – that they are inserted when they needn’t be. People seem to love themselves the apostrophes.
A mother in charge of schduling Moms to help the kindergartners with reading sent out an email to “Reading Mom’s”. I’d always reply using “Reading Moms” at least twice in the body of my message (I didn’t have the nerve to assertively correct her, since we’ll be likely in the same social circles for years to come). She never caught on, I suppose she thought I was the incorrect one.
ARg.
Hilarious! They’ve finally made it official. I’m surprised it hasn’t been passed nation-wide, but I guess Gordon Brown’s got other things on his plate.
I lived in the UK for nearly fourteen years and this is not news to me. My experience was that the majority of Brits of a certain generation don’t understand apostrophe usage (or commas for that matter). Its/it’s, your/you’re and their/they’re/there seemed to be a total mystery to people from all kinds of educational backgrounds. I often saw ‘”carrot’s” for sale. It was a daily issue at work and several of my co-workers confessed to me that they had no recollection of being taught grammar at school. Some were embarrassed, but others thought it was no big deal… and why would they? All the important stuff is supposed to be covered at school!
I loved my time in the UK, but it is a country where a daily act of worship in the public school system is legislated. I always thought that, maybe, if they skipped the prayers and hymn-singing, they’d have time for those grammar lessons we secular North Americans remember fondly from elementary school.
Agreed, agreed, and agreed, but I’m going to be a punctuation Nazi and point out that you misused that semicolon in the third-paragraph introductory sentence. Semicolons aren’t the same as commas! OK, now throw things at me.
I’m not a grammar/spelling nazi, and I know that my writing skills can be improved, but the your/you’re and their/they’re/there errors really bother me. We learned these rules in elementary school!
http://www.flickr.com/groups/apostrophes/
Its the apocalypse!
So much easier to type without that pesky apostrophe. =)
I weep for humanity. I take pictures of misspelled signs, then text them to my friends to mock the ignorant. I saw a professional sign (as in, made out of plastic and available for purchase!) that said “Smile. Your on camera!” and I laughed until I cried. Then, there was the handwritten one that said “Fressh arti-cokes” over the artichokes at the store.