Friday December 28, 2007
Preposterous apostrophes
STRICTLY SPEAKING: By STEPHEN KAU
VISUALLY, an apostrophe looks, well (for lack of a more descriptive word), “funny”, incomplete, a mere half of the “more attractive” quote marks.
Aurally, it sounds somewhat silly, almost preposterous.
Its usefulness is problematic, for it serves only two functions, neither of which is absolutely necessary.
An apostrophe is used to denote possession – for example, Patrick’s car – and as a contraction, for instance, it’s instead of it is or it has.
Some writers are opting to do away with the apostrophe to describe possession, preferring to give (using the aforementioned example) Patricks car instead of the traditional form.
Their argument for the change: If the possessive pronouns of hers, his, its, ours, theirs and yours do not need an apostrophe, then why should other expressions of possession have this “funny, half-a- dangling-thing”?
And when it comes to contractions, some argue that the very idea should be expunged from written English forever.
Such traditionalists would agree (albeit reluctantly, I imagine) that contractions are entrenched in spoken English, but would contend that contractions should appear only in direct speech (in the dialogue of a movie/TV script, for example) in written works.
But unless, or until, the billions of English-language users agree to kill off the apostrophe, we are stuck with it.
Now, if only folks out there, especially those in the business world, would learn to avoid using it for plurals.
“We have 100’s and 1000’s of gift ideas,” a company boasted in its leaflet shoved into my letterbox recently.
A used-car outlet offers this: “4WD’s for sale”.
One shop near my home in the Sydney suburb of Penrith even has this: “Fresh pizza’s everyday”. (They’ve also spelt “everyday” wrong in this context.)
Clearly, many business people do not know how to handle this ’, which we call a punctuation.
So I offer them this simple way to remember when NOT to use the apostrophe to pluralise nouns.
Folks, each time you feel the urge to put in this ’ to make something plural, especially for numbers and abbreviations, just imagine SPELLING the word.
For instance, spell the figure 100 ... hundred.
Next, ask yourself this question: If I say hundreds of customers, do I use the apostrophe to write hundred’s of customers? Heck, no! AH-HAH!
There you go, folks.
If hundreds and, for that matter, thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, etc, do not need the apostrophe, then 100s, 1,000s, 100,000s, 1,000,000s, etc, do not need it either.
Same concept for abbreviations – Four-Wheel Drives, 4WDs: Just insert the ‘s’ without the silly- looking ’.
Please! Otherwise, pedantic ones like me would have to put up with ridiculous signs like “Fresh pizza’s everyday” every day.
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