A huge pet peeve of professional writers is the rampant and flagrant misuse of the apostrophe. It wounds us when we spot an expensive neon sign that inserts an apostrophe where it needn’t be, and riles us needlessly when another sign leaves one out where it has a rightful place.
A recent PR Daily post noted that to the strictest grammarians, the fact that Starbucks Coffee has no apostrophe is a travesty, since it is an obvious mistake. Sure, the company has the right to spell it however they please. Either they determined that it looked better without the apostrophe or believed that it was best to go without because people might not find the company website. Still, some of us would sleep much better if the so-called God’s comma were part of the official logo.
In PR Daily, writer Mark Nichol outlined several common apostrophe mistakes and ways to avoid them. Some of these rules may surprise you.
1. Plurals. Mistakenly writing taxi’s as the plural form for multiple taxis is known as a greengrocer’s apostrophe because of its ubiquitous use in handwritten signs.
2. Pronouns. Possessive pronouns such as theirs and yours never include an apostrophe. The possessive pronoun its doesn’t take one either – the contraction it’s (meaning it is) does.
3. Separate / shared possession. When two or more people separately own something, each name should be in possessive form, e.g. Jim’s and Sue’s houses are on the same street.”
4. Possessive form of a surname. My shingle on the porch should not read “The Douglas’s house” unless my legal name is The Douglas. A sign identifying my house should instead read “The Douglases' house.” Note: Spell Check is wrong on this one.
5. Plural form of an abbreviation. No apostrophe is required with plurals of abbreviations, such as “They disarmed several IEDs,” not IED’s.
6. Plural form of a numeral. In indicating more than one numeral, do not use an apostrophe: “Write four 9s on a piece of paper,” not 9’s.
7. Span of years. Despite what you may read in some publications, an apostrophe isn’t necessary. Write “The Beatles, arguably rock’s best band, came to fame in the 60s,” not “60’s.” In general, an apostrophe should follow a number only if it is possessive, e.g. “It was 1985’s longest-reigning Top 40 hit.” An exception is use of a number to stand in for a person, such as “It was No. 13’s lucky day on the gridiron.”
8. Plural form of a word used as a word. Don’t apostrophize the conjunctions in “There are no ifs, ands or buts about it,” or “A helpful life of dos and don’ts follows.” (Except for the necessary apostrophe in the short form of do nots).
9. Plural form of a letter. To avoid appearing awkward, use apostrophes in the case of an expression like “Mind your p’s and q’s,” or “She received only A’s on her report card.”
Now that clears up apostrophes. Here’s a bonus hint, courtesy of Grammar Girl, regarding the often-puzzling choice between who and whom. Here’s what GG, also known by her real name, Mignon Fogarty, says: Like whom, the pronoun him ends with the letter M. When you’re trying to decide whether to use who or whom, ask yourself if the hypothetic answer to the question would contain he or him. If it’s him, you use whom, and they both end with M.
Rather than keeping my strong grammatical opinions to myself, I will occasionally spew forth on this blog, alongside with helpful hints on other areas of PR, writing and editing. Stay tuned.