The growing misuse of the apostrophe is reaching catastrophic proportions. Sometimes they’re common errors — it’s for its. Although the distinction between the meaning and use of these words is clear enough, they’re both real words, so we’d expect some people to not know which is which, just as some people apparently don’t know the difference between there and their and lose and loose. 

Some apostrophe errors are wild and bewildering, and we’re seeing them more and more. For some reason, people are putting apostrophes before the ’s’ in plural words: “Just wait till the boy’s come home.” I don’t know why anyone would think an apostrophe is needed when a word is made plural. One time, at a pizza place, on a scrolling electronic sign, I was informed that french fries’ were on the menu. Although most of us would never make that particular error, we all make mistakes when typing quick e-mails. However, many of these errors are showing up on printed material and painted signs. Look around for a couple of days and you’re bound to find some egregious examples of catpostrophe, on the sides of trucks, newspaper ads, and brochures. Aren’t there proofreaders looking for work somewhere?

Anyway, you’d have to search far and wide to find a catpostrophe as bad as this one, painted on the side of a building on the boardwalk at Ocean City, Maryland, the letters two feet high:

Photo credit: Jared Boshnack

About Scott Stein

Tags: sticks & stones //