A newspaper humor columnist referred to the Christmas trees that show up on magazine covers and TV specials:

You know the one’s–those over-the-top- decorator trees with big, fat, silk taffeta ribbons cascading downward. The one’s festooned by bows the size of my boxer shorts and sporting more balls than the play-pit at McDonald’s.

Notice the misuse of apostrophes, with “one’s” appearing not once but twice in consecutive sentences. The rest of the column was funny enough deliberately, but I laughed plenty long at the repeated blunder. Maybe today’s papers can’t afford copy editors anymore.

The apostrophe (‘) has three legitimate uses:

• to indicate possession (David’s blogs)
• to indicate omission (don’t = do not)
• to form the plural of numerals (1960’s, although hardly anyone writes it like that any  more) or capital letters (A’s, so it doesn’t look like the word As)

There are, to be sure, some additional rules. For example, most authorities say to indicate the plural of a word that ends with “s” by putting only an apostrophe after the “s”––Mr. Jones’, not Mr. Jones’s.

Abuse of apostrophes

Anything else is abuse. People are often confused between “its” and “it’s,” and perhaps legitimately so. “Its” is one of three third person singular possessive pronouns: his, hers, its. Being a pronoun, it already indicates possession and does not have an apostrophe. “It’s,” on the other hand, indicates omission. It’s short for “it is.”

Some people, for whatever reason, stick apostrophes before almost any final “s” whether it makes sense or not. Years ago, I noticed a grocery store that apparently had an overstock on eggs. A hand printed sign promised “egg’s” at a ridiculously low price “while supply last’s.”

I thought it was very funny, at least until I recognized that it was only one example of an  epidemic of misused apostrophes–most often inserted where they don’t belong, but occasionally missing or misplaced. Professional sign makers are among the chief offenders.

Flickr has an entire photography group called Atrocious Apostrophe’s, which has more than 3000 examples of apostrophe misuse, taken mostly from the work of professionally-made signs. Don’t try this at home! Punctuation disaster ahead!

• [Painted on the door of a  flower shop] Flowers for every occasion–weddings / birthdays / new arrivals / anniversary’s / corporate events . . .
• [Newspaper ad for Isuzu] Corsa’s Meriva’s Astra’s Tigra’s  Vectra’s Signum’s Zafira’s Convertibles’s [remarkably consistent!]
• [Yellow pages ad] Santa’s and Elves
• [Not professionally painted, but posted in a school] Homework Club / There will be a  homework club on Thursday’s after school between 3:00 and 3:45pm. . .
• [Headers on a chart comparing European and British shoe sizes] Adults’ Childrens’
• [At a park] Benches are not to be move from its position. Also no feet’s should be on the benches.
• [Brand name on a bag of mulch] Natures Best [Hey, so many others put apostrophes where they don’t belong that maybe there weren’t any left for when this batch of bags needed them.]
• [In a book store] See the world through other’s eyes [Apparently only one other. It should be others’ for the plural]
• [Behind a strip mall]  Plaza delivery’s only
• [Sign at a day nursery] Childrens Learning Centre
• [At a candy store] Cre’me Eggs [!!]
• [At a news stand] New’s Mart #2

(I have looked all over, but still never seen any apostrophe abuse to beat “while supply last’s.”)

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