eradicate the greengrocer's apostrophe

Where do I begin? The greengrocer’s apostrophe drives me absolutely bonkers. Didn’t we all learn in the first grade that to form a plural, you add either “s” or “es”? Yes, we did. In school we didn’t add apostrophes to form plurals. So what, then, is causing people to do this, when the correct way typically requires less effort (fewer characters)?

I recently saw a paragraph, online, in which the writer used the following as nouns: look’s, idea’s, test’s, profile’s, initial’s, clothe’s, turn-on’s, thing’s, animal’s, and kid’s.

In. One. Paragraph.

I’m seeing this more and more frequently, and it’s depressing me. Seriously. Why are people doing this, and how can it be stopped? :-)

is integrated into my daily life, so I don’t feel the need to have it here as a reminder. I get lots of opportunities to eradicate the greengrocer’s apostrophe in my workplace, so I feel as though I’m doing my bit towards this goal.

at least as far as my own writings are concerned—at least as far as I can tell :)

And if I’ll ever come across any unneeded apostrophe I’ll try to eradicate it. I promise!

On my way to better English this goal is a MUST.

But if you think you’re suffering, me dear English speaking people, then please be comforted: at least you are not living in a German speaking country.

In German there is no apostrophe for the genitive.
I mean, that’s what I learned at school. It’s not what I experience every day.

Eg. English: Helga’s Studio would be Helgas Studio in correct German.

Some HORRIBLE examples:

There’s a pub I used to go to where they sell beer from Flensburg, called “Flensburger” or, short, “Flens”. Or, yea, you’ll have guessed, on their menu it’s Flen’s.

Very strange: Ha’st du drangedacht (Ha’ve you thoughtofit* ... aha?)

But the most amazing thing I saw was an announcement for an after-the-exams-party (‘party’ = ‘Feier’):
Examen’s Feier Ooo, look out, the examen are coming to get ya!

is never done.

is I get to read a lot of reports in the draft stage. This gives me a lot of scope for eradicating the greengrocer’s apostrophe. This was a particularly fine week. I saved my employer from sending a report to the Minister that said “the families income” instead of “the family’s income”, and a few other nasty little mistakes.

this interesting article on the topic of grammar in the workplace. It specifically mentions apostrophes, and the discussion that follows is quite lively. I recommend it.

that when I think about this goal, what I’m really getting at is illiteracy in general.

People who write “woz” instead of “was”, for example, without even the poor excuse of abbreviation.

People who use “literally” to mean quite the opposite. Not literally. So you drank so much that you literally died, did you? Are you sure? Have you thought that sentence through? Perhaps you should hop along to the nearest research lab so that they can investigate the fact that you are still able to function.

People who write 8 instead of -ate, 4 instead of for, and generally use numbers in an inappropriate, non-numerical way.

People who don’t or, more worryingly, can’t, distinguish between “your”, possessive, and “you’re”, contraction.

idem “their” and “they’re”, with the added variable of “there” in for good measure.

Symptomatic of the underlying laziness and/or ineptitude in these examples (do you know what I do when I don’t know how to spell a word or form its plural? I look it up in a dictionary) is that great monolith of modern ignorance, the bane of my life if not society at large; the greengrocer’s apostrophe.

http://www.apostrophe.fsnet.co.uk/index.htm

I am thinking of printing off this list of rules (really, it’s quite simple), and leaving copies at offending establishments.
Failing that, quite a few organisations give out free marker pens to apostrophe correctors. It feels mighty liberating, I can tell you.

The owner announced some “workshop’s” on it.
I felt a little smart-alecky, but I could not resist, even if they probably don’t realize the difference…

Yeh, definatly somthing that needs to happen! Another thing that needs to go is the use of all lower case, and especialy the use of a lower case I. Someone calling themselves i to me means they don’t think they deserve a capital letter!