Apostrophe me

Someday, I will publish a coffee table book that will be filled with beautiful, artistic photos of public signs with misused apostrophes. It will be 536 pages long. That will be the first volume.

apostropheI don’t consider myself a grammar nut. I’m not the punctuation police by any stretch. I don’t dissolve into puddles over these things (like the poor sap in this cartoon … click to enlarge). They don’t offend me.

Truth is, I find screwups like misplaced apostrophes, you’re vs. your and — here’s a big one — they’re, their and there relatively amusing. I take pleasure, yes, in other people’s problems with basic English. Sue me, but I find it hard to fathom how people can get through grade school without knowing it’s from its or its‘ (that’s a trick!).

On the driving range near my house, the one I use when I’m thinking about truly, honestly taking the game seriously and practicing a couple times a week — that usually lasts less than a week — there are signs:

GRASS TEE’S ONLY

They don’t want you hitting off the plastic mats, I guess. Or the mat’s.

The examples are endless. But I’m saving them for the book, working title My Little Squiggle. It will sit beside my other coffee-table book, Bad Shoe, which will showcase beautiful, artistic photos of shoes on the side of the street.

Dang. Facebook has everything. Dammit.

One thought on “Apostrophe me

  1. Apostrophes are the worst. I always wonder if we’re worse as a society or if the masses are simply writing much more in the public eye than they were 10 or 50 years ago.

    I love when it’s something that has some relative permanence, like a storefront or a T-shirt.

    I would buy that book, and others would too, some rather possessive when they shouldn’t be, and vice versa.

    Like

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