Apostrophe Catastrophe, pt. 2

Words are insufficient to express how much I detest this sort of thing:

Not the ’70s per se, but rather the typographical dumbness and/or inexcusable laziness inherent in having the apostrophe in such instances going the wrong way.

For once, uncomfortably, I have to put myself among the Blame the Computer crowd. Specifically, I blame “helpful” applications that insert legitimate quotation marks and apostrophes into our sentences. That and dumbness and laziness (see above).

For the most part, I appreciate having " and " turned into “ and ”, but the problem arises when the program gets to ' and ’. See, Word, PhotoShop, InDesign, etc., don't know an apostrophe from a single quote mark. So it looks for cues from the structure of a sentence. If it guesses that the user wants single quotes around a sentence, or a word or words within a sentence, it will correctly produce something like this:

“The quick brown fox jumps over the ‘lazy’ dog.”

Good enough. Likewise, when the program detects a single quote mark within a word, it correctly deduces an apostrophe is the order of the day:

“The quick brown fox’s kits jump over the ‘lazy’ dog.”

But things go entirely off the rails when those sentence cues don’t hold. For instance, a couple of paragraphs ago, when I wrote “ and ” ? I had to go back and make sure the second quotation mark curved the right direction. Good ol’ Microsoft Word wanted to give me “ and “ … because the space after and made the program thing it was the beginning of a sentence, phrase, or word. It gave me the right quotation mark, but in the wrong context.

And when I wrote good ol’ Microsoft Word back there? Word correctly determined that I needed an apostrophe in ol’, since it indicates a missing letter, and delivered the goods. But it—and nearly any other program you’d care to name—gives out entirely when it comes to something like Welcome to the ’70s. It’s the space in front of ’70s that throws it, making it think that a single quote mark is needed rather than an apostrophe. And it delivers the wrong goods.

The fix is really very easy: You type ‘’70s --> , and then go back and delete the --> ‘. Alas, computers have convinced a great many people that anyone who can use turn one on is a writer, editor, designer, typographer, you name it, and so a great many people who don’t know the difference between ‘ and ’ – and are too ignorant to know they don’t know – are misusing left-hand single quote marks as apostrophes. Luckily, it’s almost certain that a majority of their readers or viewers don’t know the difference either. But for those of us who do…nails on a blackboard.

That said: Kudos to the designer of the image above, or a semi-astute editor or art director, for not sticking an apostrophe before the s in ’70s. If ‘70s is like nails on a blackboard, ‘70’s would be like an icepick in the ear.

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Apostrophe Catastrophe

But of course! When “its” actually needs the apostrophe, that’s the one time it gets written without one! Shee-it.

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Comma Comment

Last night I was flipping through my son’s English book as we discussed his needing to select from it a poem for a class project. The book contained many of my favorites, including The Lamb, The Second Coming, Ozymandius (which I memorized when I was even younger than my son is now, for a class project), and several by good old Robert Frost, including this:

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost

New Hampshire, 1923

Recalling a discussion of the poem in an English class back in college, I shared with my son the subtextual meaning of “the woods,” and privately reflected, not for the first time, on the first line of the last stanza:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

Not long ago I fell into a Facebook “conversation” about the serial comma, aka the Oxford comma. I have always used it, finding it more logical and clear than the newspaper style, which omits the comma before “and” or “or”: Snap, Crackle, and Pop clearly refers to three entities; Snap, Crackle and Pop could refer to three, or to two (Snap + [Crackle and Pop]), depending on context.

With the serial-comma conversation fairly fresh in mind, I recalled my English professor’s comment on the punctuation of that line:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep says something quite different from The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.

Frost isn’t saying the woods are lovely and dark and deep; he is saying they are lovely (because they are) dark and deep. Dark and deep is a single expression, as is lovely.

But if you don’t habitually employ the serial comma you may well lose that distinction, for its absence in the poem would go unnoticed. Lovely, dark and deep would be like Snap, Crackle and Pop—maybe two ideas, maybe three, and probably unnoticed.

Even by its absence, the serial comma does important work.

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I Think This Battle Is Lost

From yet another of my surveys:


In case it's too small to read, it says In what ways does Hampton Inn/Suites show it's conservation efforts?

Of course, it should say In what ways does Hampton Inn/Suites show its conservation efforts?It's is a contraction, for it is or it has.

In my various pedagogic undertakings, I have advised students to avoid this silly, third-grade error by mentally--or, if they prefer. physically--rewording the sentence utilizing it is. If the sentence makes sense, then they should use it's. If it doesn't, they should use its.

Apparently, I'm the only one sharing this advice. Or else it's being roundly ignored by the pupils and former pupils of all the others who are sharing similar advice.

It's one thing when a local mom-and-pop operation publishes such a foolish error. It's quite another when a big international market-research firm can't manage grade-school punctuation.

And when that big international market-research firm is part of a gigantic publishing conglomeroid, well, the irony is almost unbearable, no?

Apostrophe Catastrophe

It's one thing when ordinary citizens can't bring themselves to put an s on the end of a word without sticking an apostrophe in front of it. (I wish I had a firecracker to put in every mailbox in town that has Anderson's on it. But it's another when "professional" products are so afflicted, and when the "professionals" who produced them can't manage to check a style and usage guide...or ask a clever junior-high student.

Here's a screenshot from Zap2It.com, which I checked to see when Doctor Who is on tonight (7:30, in case you're interested):

For the record: The lackluster Flash Gordon reincarnation, which was on SciFi last season but now has moved to Ion, is on at 7/6 C on Fridays. Not Friday's. Fridays. I know it's difficult, Ion marketing/advertising people, but with practice you too can learn to put the letter s at the end of a word without an apostrophe.

I put it to my students thusly: The apostrophe-s indicates either possession or contraction:

It is a beautiful day in the neighborhood = It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood = Correct!

The ball belongs to Spot = It is Spot's ball = Correct!

Members of the Nelson family are coming for dinner = The Nelson's are coming for dinner = Incorrect!

The lackluster Flash Gordon is on every Friday at 7 = The lackluster Flash Gordon is on Friday's at 7:00 = Incorrect! (Except for the lackluster part.)

So as I told the class, if you can't rephrase the sentence to indicate a contraction or possessive (and still have the sentence make sense!), then you need to ditch the apostrophe.

We will save for another day the matter of forming possessives when the word ends in s already!

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Addendum A: I do wonder, however, about the mailbox mentioned above. It is, I suppose, possible that the labelers of said box intended to indicate that it belongs to Anderson, in which case Anderson's would be correct. But I rather suspect it's meant to indicate that the box receives mail for members of the Anderson household, in which case Andersons is what you need. Of course, you can save time, confusion, and a sticky metal letter if you go with Anderson and hope the letter carrier can figure it out from there.

Addendum B: Some years ago I worked for a company called The Webb Company in St. Paul, Minnesota. It no longer exists. The company, I mean. Anyhow, some time after I left there I communicated to a former co-worker that I would be meeting a friend of his who also had worked at Webb but had left shortly before I joined. My friend told me not to be alarmed when the other fellow referred to the place as Webbs, as my friend rendered it in his letter to me. And sure enough, when I introduced myself to the other fellow, mentioning our mutual friend, he in turn introduced me to his wife and said that I too had worked at Webbs...except that, as I later expressed to my friend, I think it was in fact more properly rendered Webb's. I have often noticed a local tendency to incorrectly render various business names as
possessives. One of the most common around here is the John Morrell meatpacking plant, which is universally referred to ('round here) as Morrell's...even though none of their signage or labeling has ever, to my knowledge, said anything except John Morrell or Morrell. I don't know why this should be, unless it goes back to a time when many if not businesses carried the proprietor's name: Bob's Grocery, Foley's Garage, etc. (Sure, names like that are still around, but my guess is there are fewer than in bygone times.)

How Tough Can it Be?

You will say I am sensitive to this burning issue only because my last name ends in an S. And, probably, you will be right. But having spent my entire adult life working with words, much of that time as an editor, all of it as a writer, I have to ask myself:

Why does it seem so freakin’ tough for people to correctly form the plural and/or possessive form of names ending in S??

It is so simple. You have one Smith; if you have more than one, you have two Smiths. If something belongs to Smith, you say it is Smith’s. If it belongs to the family, you say it is the Smiths’. It is all so straightforward, no?

Why, then, do people simply fall apart if the proper noun happens to end in an S?

Here’s an example, from yesterday’s edition of the local rag. The reporter on this story is easily the most on-the-ball writer they have down there, and I apologize for that being faint praise. But apparently she suffers the same malady that afflicts so many, and suffers also from having no good editor to help her out.

Experienced couple to lead Salvation Army
By Jill Callison
jcalliso@argusleader.com

Published: June 21, 2007

A couple with long ties to the Salvation Army have been chosen to lead the local church.

Majors Michael and Judith Mills have been ordained ministers for more than 30 years, but their ties to the Salvation Army go back longer than that.

"We're really products of what the Salvation Army can do to help individuals," Major Michael Mills said.

"My father was a recovering alcoholic. The Salvation Army helped him change his life, and we started going to church as a family. My wife was in a foster home out in South Dakota, and she started going to the Salvation Army there."

Judith Mills was raised in Rapid City and Aberdeen.

The Mills will replace Majors Paul and Mary Duskin, who have been assigned to the Eastern Michigan and Divisional Headquarters in Detroit.

Okay—catch that? The family name is apparently Mills, with an S, not Mill. And yet in that last paragraph, when they are being referred to in the plural, they are called “the Mills.”

No, no no. The Millses. One Mills; two Millses.

I’m sorry if that “sounds wrong.” No one said this was going to be pretty.

But it is straightforward. It’s every bit as straightforward as our Smith example. One Reynolds, two Reynoldses. Reynolds’s house; the Reynoldses’ house.

Several years ago I was a panelist at a writer’s convention. A woman in the audience asked a question about this very subject—how to properly for the possessive and/or plural form of names ending in S. One of my co-panelists—a well-regarded writer whose name you would recognize were I to provide it (a name that does not end in S, by the way, which is telling), and a woman who was and perhaps still is teaching English at a U.S. college, which also is telling—in all seriousness advised the questioner to avoid using names that end in S, since she herself couldn’t figure out how to keep it straight.

Ow.

I had a similar unsettling incident a few weeks ago, teaching a writing class at a local college. In that instance, I was commenting to my class on the gender-sensitive case, which they pretty much all seemed to have trouble with. I shared my (correct) opinion that, although it’s awkward, the proper form is to write Everyone must bring his or her book (rather than Everyone must bring their book, which is how my students were crafting such sentences), upon which one of the better students (in a group of really good students, it must be said) informed me that she had once raised the issue with another instructor in the English department (a member of the permanent staff, who had advanced degrees and letters after his or her name and everything), whose sage advice was to just go ahead and use their.

Ow, again.

I am reminded of my third-grade teacher, Sister Hildegund, a lovely old woman…but, alas, a very old woman, and one who should have been retired some years earlier (she literally would fall asleep at her desk during class, the poor thing). At a parent conference, she informed my folks that she didn’t understand “the new math” (as it was known in the 1960s)…and so simply did not teach it.

Ow, ow, ow.

The benefit of learning how to do something the proper way, as opposed to throwing up one’s hands in defeat and announcing that he or she “doesn’t get it,” is that once you do get it…you’ve got it, for good! Nothing is gained—no one progresses—by taking the attitude that, well, since everyone is doing it wrong we’ll just do it wrong, and sooner or later it will be right. (Obviously, that’s where we’re going with who and whom, and I have felt for some years that by the middle of this century, at the latest, all but the most hidebound of grammarians will be insisting upon the distinction. That’s fine—the language is, after all, a living and always-evolving thing—but until that time, there is a difference, and it does matter.)

And don’t even get me started on those signs people have on or in front of their houses—or, sometimes, on their RVs—telling one and all that they are The Anderson’s…or The Jone’s…