Sandy H., a teacher friend, shared this bit of news today: Birmingham, England’s second largest city, has decided to formally eliminate the apostrophe from all of the city’s street signs. So St. Paul’s Square becomes St. Pauls Square. The reason? According to the city council, apostrophes are confusing and old-fashioned.
Read articles about the ban from the the Associated Press and the London Daily Mail.
In my job as adult literacy adviser for the Los Angeles Unified School District, I read a variety of articles that appear in academic journals and on educational Web sites. Last week I was reading an article about reading assessment that was posted on www.sedl.org (the Web site of the Southwest Educational Developmental Laboratory).
I was amazed to come across this egregious error:
Linguistic knowledge is more than the sum of it’s parts….
It’s? With an apostrophe? Forget linguistic knowledge, let’s talk pronoun knowledge.
It’s is a contraction of it is (It’s time for supper) or it has (It’s been a long time). Its–no apostrophe–is the possessive pronoun (worth its weight in gold). The two words are never interchangeable.
This is a very common mistake and seems to occur mostly when it’s is used as a possessive. Here’s another example I saw a few years ago in the newsletter of a professional organization (I have files full of this stuff!):
The California School of Notary Public seeks to offer it’s notary public course at adult school campuses throughout the state.
And this, from a promotional flyer distributed by the teacher’s union:
UTLA has chosen Telincs Communications as it’s exclusive Internet service provider.
Why does this mistake pop up so frequently? Part of the problem may be that the words sound exactly alike–they’re homophones. The only difference in the spelling of the two words is the apostrophe. Not only that, we’re accustomed to using an apostrophe to indicate possession–the baby’s toy, the cat’s meow.
Misusing it’s and its should be a crime, punishable by 100 lashes with an apostrophe!
I was driving down Ventura Blvd. in Studio City,
Walk-in’s Welcome
Hmm. What’s that apostrophe doing there? Shouldn’t the sign read Walk-ins Welcome? I think so, if the message is that people without appointments are welcome. Of course, if the sign was meant to announce a welcome for a walk-in customer, then it’s fine as it is. My guess? Whoever approved the sign had spent too much time under the hair dryer.
What this sign needs is a plural noun—walk-ins. The message is that walk-ins are welcome at this salon. But the apostrophe turns the plural noun into the possessive form. Except in a couple of very specific situations (see #4 and #5 below), the apostrophe is not used to form the plural of a noun.
So for the folks at the salon and anyone else who needs it, here’s a quick review of the uses of the apostrophe:
1. To show possession
·      Greta’s Salon
·      the prince’s palace
2. In contractions to show that letters are missing
·      I’ve (I have)
·      haven’t (have not)
3. In dates to show the century number has been eliminated
·      ’80s disco music
·      the Spirit of ’76
4. To make the plural of certain forms of letters, abbreviations, and figures
·      dot your i’s and cross your t’s
·      Ph.D.’s
·      1990’s (or 1990s)
5. To avoid confusion
·      too many which’s and that’s
Let’s hope the folks at that Studio