The Plight of the Lost Apostrophe

Love it or hate it, the apostrophe is in the English language to stay. Or is it? Online Features Editor Imogen Watson tells us more.

Image credits: lisbk

It stands in the shadows of your sentence, hoping and praying that you will remember it and not kick it to the kerb; poor, small and misunderstood, it is the apostrophe.

I am going to admit to being what some might term as “quite sad” right here and right now. Incorrect usage of apostrophes really, really bothers me. Scraping your nails down a blackboard is less bothersome than a wrong apostrophe. And, of course, your response may be to inform me that there are bigger fish to fry and that I should find a real problem. There are some strains of truth to your unkind jibes; indeed global food and energy shortages are probably more pressing, as are the state of the economy. But I would wager these things would equally be much improved by a better understanding and usage of that tiny little extra flick of the pen, or that single extra tap on the keyboard. English is, after all, the international language.

Firstly, no plural ever needs an apostrophe. “Apple’s” is not the plural of the much-loved red or green fruit. Neither is it necessary to claim you have “seven A’s” at GCSE – I will happily congratulate you once I’ve asked “seven A’s what?” You needn’t mind your p’s and q’s, but please do mind your Ps and Qs and equally please don’t ask me where the RSVP’s to the party have been put (because, again, the RSVP’s what?).

The simple fact of the matter is that an apostrophe marks either a possession or a contraction. Hence if this article had instead been written by my lovely co-Editor, it would be Meg’s but, unless you suddenly had become Meg in some weird situation about which I don’t want to know, it would not be your article. Nor would it even be you’re article. But I’m coming to that.

Examples of contraction are littered throughout this article so far – “needn’t”, “don’t”, “I’m”. Some might argue this article is slightly

Image credits: CarbonNYC

poorer for them, as writing “need not”, “do not”, and “I am” are just as good. But that’s a whole different issue. However they are a demonstration of how to go about using an apostrophe in contraction: there is a letter or two missing, and so the apostrophe demonstrates that. It is neat, and simple. It is also a good way to remember whether you need “you’re” or “your” – is it “you are” and therefore a state of someone’s existence, or is it an object belonging to someone? And for heaven’s sake (the sake of heaven) please do not put an apostrophe in a verb. I have a number of metaphorical bruises on my head from face-palming when I have read “[insert name here] want’s to go to bed” or similar Facebook statuses.

Perhaps the lack of apostrophes has a time and a place, and it is one I have just mentioned. Social media is such a big part of our life, and who can be bothered to keep putting in apostrophes when they are not immediately available on our phones’ keypads (unless you are me – missed apostrophes are a sure-fire way of telling I have had a drink)? However it is slightly worrying if the situation is such that we cannot distinguish between whether or not to use one. We are becoming more lax about it, and although, granted, the apostrophe won’t solve world hunger any time soon (though if only it could…) using it wrongly does confuse meaning. Grammar and punctuation are there for a purpose – to ease communicate – and we communicate more often today by the written word than ever before – we just have to be careful to know how to communicate properly when we transfer from the internet to professional exercises such as reports, presentations, and academic writing, ambiguous meaning is not something of which we ought to be accepting.

In many senses, English is an annoying language to learn if you are not a native. Try saying “cough”, “bough”, “rough” and “through” aloud, for example. I will concede that the apostrophe is frustrating, however when, having given you two rules, I then throw an exception at you where “it is” becomes “it’s” (“it’s made out of glass and wood”), but the possessive has no apostrophe (“its glass is broken)…

Oh the joys of the English language.

Imogen Watson, Online Features Editor

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We Need To Talk About: Grammar

In his latest column, William Cafferky discusses the most annoying misuses of grammar.

Recently it was revealed that Harris Academy in Croydon had banned the use of slang words amongst its students. They argue the ban is supposed to encourage students to present themselves confidently and appropriately. However the school’s clamp down on poor grammar has been met by grumbles of discontent from some academic linguists.

As much as it pains me to admit, I am far from a grammaticist. Despite this, I do find myself frequently disgruntled by the numerous errors I encounter every day. Here are but a few of the most testing of these blunders:

Double Negatives

Most people, myself included, can remember little from our early years of maths lessons. However, one of the fundamentals I can recall was the notion that two negatives are equal to a positive. Nonetheless, this most basic of principles seems to have completely bypassed almost an entire sector of society; the music industry. We’ve all heard them, those classic songs rendered almost nonsensical due to their misuse of the double negative. From Marvin Gaye’s upbeat “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” to Pink Floyd’s marvelously hypocritical “We Don’t Need No Education”, songs have been passively fueling erroneous lyricists for decades.

Image Credits: ARTSEMERGENCY, BBC

“Literally”

Before I begin, I want to confess that I too misuse this word frequently; this does not however inhibit my passionate distaste for doing so. We’ve all been there, one of our closest friends is engaging us in an enthusiastic tale of woeful humiliation, only to conclude by saying “…and then I literally died of embarrassment.” In cases such as these, perhaps redemption can be found in the claim that the phrase was a mere exaggeration. Unfortunately, much as words such as “like” and “basically”, “literally” has crept deeper and deeper into our daily vocabulary to the extent whereby comments such as “I’m literally so tired” and “I literally can’t think of anything to do” are commonplace. To my horror, a friend recently informed me that Oxford and Google have now officially changed their definition of literally to encompass “metaphorically”, or also as a way to “add emphasis”. It would appear then, that this particular battle has been lost…literally.

“Sat rather than sitting”

This particular bugbear is another that carries a confession. It was not until a year or so ago that I was made aware of this common error, yet now that it has been highlighted it is perhaps the most irritating. Similar to discovering that your new best friend fails to blink or has a terrible laugh, once you realize the grammatical error of people’s ways it becomes ever so noticeable. How often do we hear the term “I was sat…” or “I am sat…” without a care in the world? However, if we accept, that the relationship between sat and sitting is the same as the one between ran and running, the mistake is easily noticeable. Whilst the sentence, “I was running through the rain” is perfectly uncontroversial, “I was ran through the rain” could perhaps conjure up images of someone gently dragging me through the rain, as if I were a comb.

Irony, Coincidence and Misfortune.

The word “ironic” is seemingly extremely popular and yet widely misunderstood. It doesn’t help that an exact definition of what irony is, is somewhat disputed. Nevertheless, we do know what irony isn’t. Perhaps the most recognised example of its abuse is in Alanis Morissette’s hit song “Ironic”. In fact, of all the 11 attempts that the song makes to recall ironic situations, only 1 or 2 are truly successful. For example, she refers to “a free ride, when you’ve already paid” which is merely an example of poor scheduling. Meanwhile, “rain on your wedding day” is just plain bad luck. This situation would be ironic, if your fiancé were a weather girl who had forecast clear skies, and thus planned the wedding for this particular day. Admittedly, this would have been a rather wordy verse for a pop song, but then perhaps irony wasn’t the best subject to tackle.

These are but a few common and exasperating mistakes; you may well have your own favourites. It is clear that mainstream culture is rife with grammatical errors, and perhaps this is the reasoning behind Harris Academy’s seemingly extreme decision. There is something arguably unnatural in supressing the evolution of language, which is the case argued by some who condemn the school’s decision. Unfortunately, for irritable folk like me, there’s a downside to allowing language to adapt organically: it makes the war on bad grammar seemingly unwinnable.

William Cafferky, Features Columnist