The apostrophe catastrophe
There’s talk of giving up on the apostrophe. It’s dangerous talk. You can hear about on the ITV News tonight or read about it in today’s Daily Mail. Give up on the apostrophe and you’re giving in to linguistic anarchy. Here are words that I have seen with my own eyes – on ten separate signs and one gravestone. Read and despair.
Tattoo’s
Open Sunday’s
No Dogs Were Afraid
Teacher’s Break Room
Ladies and Mens Outfitters
St Lukes Hospital Main Entrance
Hard Hat’s required beyond this point
Karen’s Bit’s & Bob’s at Bargain Price’s
The Birmingham Childrens Hospital NHS Trust
One of the best of mother’s – may she rest in peace
Dentists look after your teeth. Who looks after theirs’? Colgate!
It’s a pyramid of shame, isn’t it? I am confident that you feel it is because, according to every public opinion survey on the subject I’ve seen, the misplaced apostrophe – and the missing apostrophe – are the two linguistic horrors that distress most of us the most. Look around as you walk down any street and they hit you in the face like a series of Smokin’ Joe Frazier’s left hooks. They’re unbearable – and everywhere.
Incredibly, not everyone feels the same way. I once met Dr John Wells, Emeritus Professor of Phonetics at University College, London, who maintains the apostrophe is ‘a waste of time’. George Bernard Shaw (a fellow vegetarian and, in so many ways, a great man) described apostrophes as ‘uncouth bacilli’. Intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic have campaigned for the abolition of the apostrophe over the years, on the grounds that in spoken English it is irrelevant, and in written English it’s largely unnecessary and causes more trouble than it’s worth.
I beg to differ. As Mr Russell, the head of English at the Park School, Baltimore (where I taught during my Gap Year in the 1960s), used to say: ‘Without the apostrophe, how are you going to tell the difference between feeling your nuts and feeling you’re nuts?’ I believe in the place, power and value of the apostrophe.
Once upon a time, in the United States, the war against the apostrophe was led by a remarkable man of letters called Steven Byington. He was a noted linguist (fluent in twelve languages) who translated the Bible and was kind to animals, but he had a bee in his bonnet when it came to the apostrophe and believed passionately that ‘the language would be none the worse for its abolition’. That Byington (who was undeniably brilliant) felt as he did puzzled me until I discovered his secret: he was an anarchist. That explained everything.
Give up on the apostrophe and you’re giving in to chaos. Without the apostrophe, there’s linguistic anarchy. The apostrophe is the symbol of our cause – the mark we need emblazoned on our banners. If we go weak or wobbly in our defence of the apostrophe, we are on the slippery slope to incomprehensibility and confusion.
The late, great English novelist, Kingsley Amis, liked to illustrate the importance of the role of the apostrophe by quoting one seven-word sentence in which the placing or the absence of an apostrophe would transform the meaning of the words:
- Those things over there are my husband’s. (Meaning: Those things over there belong to my husband.)
- Those things over there are my husbands’. (Meaning: Those things over there belong to my husbands – I have more than one.)
- Those things over there are my husbands. (Meaning: I'm married to those men over there.)
Another considerable man of letters is my friend, Bernard C Lamb, Emeritus Reader in Genetics at Imperial College, London, and President of the Queen’s English Society. He likes to illustrate the power of the apostrophe with the example of the headline: BRITON’S BATTLE FATIGUE. This was an account of one Briton’s battle fatigue. Had the apostrophe followed the ‘s’ it would have indicated the battle fatigue of more than one Briton. Without the apostrophe – in Bernard Shaw and Steven Byington’s dark, anarchic world – the headline changes its meaning altogether, BATTLE transmogrifying from a noun to a verb and the headline – BRITONS BATTLE FATIGUE – suggesting a nation united in a struggle against exhaustion.
Okay, you get the message. Without apostrophes: Armageddon. We need ’em. And we need to know how to use ’em. Read on.
The apostrophe is used to do one of two things:
1. It’s there to show possession – to indicate that a thing or a person belongs or relates to someone or something. (Possession is a novel by A S Byatt: yes, Possession is A S Byatt’s novel.)
2. It’s there to show omission – to indicate that letters are missing. (It is her best-known novel: yes, it’s her best-known one.)
POSSESSION – THE RULES
- With singular nouns and most personal names, simply add an apostrophe followed by the letter s:
Yesterday’s news
The gamekeeper’s mistress
Lady Chatterley’s lover
- With personal names that end in –s, add an apostrophe followed by further s when you would normally pronounce an extra s if you said the word out loud:
Those are Dickens’s novels
Camilla is Charles’s wife
That is Martin Rees’s telescope
(Annoyingly, there are occasional exceptions to this rule, notably in relation to the names of organisations, companies and brands. Writing about the miracles of Saint Thomas you would be correct to refer to ‘Saint Thomas’s miracles’, but when it comes to the London hospital it is known as St Thomas’ Hospital. You might want to refer to Starbucks’s range of sandwiches – because that’s how you say it – but Starbucks want you to think of them simply as Starbucks so they eschew the apostrophe altogether. It’s Starbucks Coffee - and that’s that.)
- With personal names that end in -s but when said out loud are not spoken with an extra s, you just add an apostrophe after the -s:
Starbucks’ argument did not impress the Inland Revenue
Mellors’ performance much impressed Lady Chatterley
- With a plural noun that already ends in –s, you simply add an apostrophe after the s:
The new term at the boys’ school begins in two weeks’ time
The horses’ stable doors have been bolted
- With a plural noun that doesn’t end in –s, you add an apostrophe plus an s:
Yet again the women’s team scored better than the men’s team
- Apart from Starbucks, the only time when you do not need to use an apostrophe at all to show possession is with the group of words known as possessive pronouns. Here they are:
his
hers
ours
yours
theirs
And they mean belonging to him, her, us, you, or them.
The same goes for the so-called possessive ‘determiners’:
his
her
its
our
your
their
meaning belonging to or associated with him, her, it, us, you, or them.
Given we are celebrating the Queen’s English here, note that while there is no apostrophe in his, hers, ours, yours and theirs, there is one in one’s.
And to be sure never to get its (the possessive pronoun) confused with it’s (meaning it is), remember:
• Its is possessive, so all the letters hug to one another.
• It’s means it is, so if in doubt spell it out.
‘This is the age of Twitter. Its time has come.’ That makes sense.
‘This is the age of Twitter. It is time has come.’ That doesn’t.
Its easy – wrong! It is easy, so it’s easy – right?
OMMISSION – THE RULES
An apostrophe is used to show when letters (or numbers) have been omitted:
It’s obvious,
isn’t it?
Well, it’s obvious with it’s because the i is missing from is. It’s slightly less obvious with isn’t because you are combining two words as well as dropping the o from is not.
I’m is short for I am
You’re is short for you are
He’ll is short for he will
She’d is short for she had or she would
Wouldn’t is short for would not
Shan’t is short for shall not (and in some old books you might find it written as sha’n’t)
Fish ‘n’ chips is short for fish and chips
The fo’c’sle – also known as the fo’c’s’le – is short for the forecastle, the upper deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast
We think of the roaring ’20s as the roaring ’twenties – and that’s the decade, the 1920s or nineteen-twenties, when our grandparents were having a gay old time enjoying their roaring twenties
[See what I did there? – illustrating the difference the presence or absence of an apostrophe makes]
Agreed: it’s all a bit of a pick ‘n’ mix, especially when you remember than words like influenza and telephone were once abbreviated to ’flu and ’phone, but now have lost their apostrophes. Because I’m quite old-school I still call a violin-cello a ’cello
APOSTROPHES AND PLURALS
The rule is that you should NOT use an apostrophe to form the plurals of:
nouns,
names,
abbreviations,
or dates made up of numbers
Instead you just add an –s, or an –es if the noun in question forms its plural with -es:
Apple / apples
Banana / bananas
Cat / cats
Class / classes
Iris / irises
Lens / lenses
Dollar/ Dollars
Euro/euros
MP/MPs
Daisy (the name) – Daisys
Daisy (the flower) – Daisies
1920 / 1920s
Apostrophe / apostrophes
We shall be exploring controversial plurals in a few pages’ time. The point here and now is whether or not the plural of referendum is referendums or referenda; it is never referendum’s.
With the plural of a family name, you just add an –s. It’s the Brandreths, the Kardashians and the Trumps, you need to keep up with, never the Brandreth’s, the Kardashian’s or the Trump’s. When the family name ends with s, x, z, ch or sh, you do NOT add an apostrophe: you add –es, keeping up with the Joneses, the Fairfaxes, the Rodriguezes, the Norwiches and the Bushes.
The tiny exception to this no-apostrophes-with-plurals rule comes in the case of single letters and single numbers if adding an apostrophe aids clarity. ‘I’ve dotted the is and crossed the ts’ looks wrong and reads confusingly, so ‘I’ve dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s’ is allowed. The same goes for ‘Mind your p’s and q’s’, but only because ‘ps’ could be misinterpreted as an abbreviation of ‘postscript’.
I don’t think you need an apostrophe here: ‘How many 5s are there in the number 5,555?’ But some authorities say you do. There are times when the language is undoubtedly at 6s and 7s … or is that 6’s and 7’s … or sixes and sevens? No one can quite agree. The general feeling among the authorities I’ve consulted seems to be that, online and in emails, numbers should be written using digits, but when writing for the record you should definitely use words for numbers for one through to nine, probably use words for numbers for ten to twenty, and possibly use words for numbers to get from twenty-one to one hundred. In formal writing, when only two words are involved, the preference is for words rather than digits – so it’s one hundred, but 123, three thousand, but 3,333.
That said, remember that an apostrophe should NEVER be used to form the plural of ordinary nouns, names, abbreviations, or numerical or dates. Take another look at the pyramid of shame and shudder:
Tattoo’s
No! It’s ‘Tattoos’
Open Sunday’s
No! It’s ‘Open Sundays’
No Dogs Were Afraid
No! It’s ‘No dogs we’re afraid’
Teacher’s Break Room
No! It’s ‘Teachers’ Break Room’
(unless, of course, it’s one of those lovely little village school where there is only one teacher)
Ladies and Mens Outfitters
No! It’s ‘Ladies’ and Men’s Outfitters’
(though, intriguingly, when two owners of the same thing are named in the same sentence the apostrophe comes only after the second name, not after both, so if the owners of the Ladies’ and Gents’ outfitters in question are called Jack and Jill it would be Jack and Jill’s outfitters. Nobody said this was going to be easy.
St Lukes Hospital Main Entrance
No! It’s ‘St Luke’s Hospital Main Entrance’
Hard Hat’s required beyond this point
No! It’s ‘Hard hats required beyond this point’
Karen’s Bit’s & Bob’s at Bargain Price’s
No! It’s Karen’s Bits & Bobs at Bargain Prices
The Birmingham Childrens Hospital NHS Trust
No! It’s ‘The Birmingham Children’s Hospital NHS Trust’
One of the best of mother’s – may she rest in peace
No! It’s ‘One of the best of mothers – may she rest in peace’
(unless they’ve buried her with one of her famous fruit cakes, possibly illustrated on the gravestone, in which case it could well be one of the best of mother’s … Either way, may she rest in peace)
Dentists look after your teeth. Who looks after theirs’? Colgate!
No! It’s ‘Dentists look after your teeth. Who looks after theirs? Colgate!’