Does anybody else HATE the misuse of an apostrophe as much as me?

Question

My brother and I were talking about this the other night and I was so glad when he got as angry as me! In case you're after an example, here are a few:
*Two sock's.
*Egg's for sale.
*My friend's are coming over.
*The sun is shining through the tree's.
You get the idea!

Answer 1

I too hate the incorrect use of grammar and long to scrub out any incorrect usage of punctuation. Yes, perhaps it is a bit anal. However, if you tolerate this, then what next? No capital letters? No fullstops? Everything written in darned text language?Correctly-written English and good pronunciation are surely the external views of a moral society.

I think there's a song title for the Manic Street Preachers in there somewhere.

Answer 2

Gordon S's (or is it Gordon S' ?!) answer was excellent... up until the last bit. As he says, "I" is nominative (subject) and "me" is accusative (object), but although the "me" in the question sounds right, it is actually wrong - it should be "I".

The way to think about this is to imagine if the asker had written the question more fully - "Does anybody else HATE the misuse of an apostrophe as much as I [hate the misuse of an apostrophe]?" or even "Does anybody else HATE the misuse of an apostrophe as much as I [do]?"

The asker is not the object of the sentence, but is another subject ('anybody else hates' and 'I hate'); the "misuse" is the object of the sentence. "As" is not
a preposition here, but part of an adverbial phrase.

To answer the original question: yes, I hate it!

Answer 3

I am with you. People argue that this is a trivial thing to get upset about and that we should get a life and blah blah blah but punctuation is part of the making of our language. The misuse of an apostrophe, a comma or a full stop can completely change the meaning of a sentence. It's important to get these things right. And I strongly believe that if someone is going to write a sign for the public to see, they should either be literate or find someone who is.

Answer 4

Lynne Truss has already written a very successful book on this subject - Eats Shoots & Leaves.

A Panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says "look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.

Answer 5

The, misuse of any. punctuation! annoys me? E'specially' the Apostrophe's and comma's'.
I:m almost ready; to scream.

It is even worse when done on national TV and newspaper headlines. Bad grammar and spelling used in either of these places lends credibility and promotes the continued bad habit,
i.e., the incorrect doubling of consonants in words like 'habbit'

Answer 6

I get annoyed by Yates'. Either the apostraphe goes before the yes as it belongs to yate or there isn't one. I can't drink there it's so annoying. You should read Eats, shoots and leaves.

Book Description
Everyone knows the basics of punctuation, surely? Aren't we all taught at school how to use full stops, commas and question marks? And yet we see ignorance and indifference everywhere. "Its Summer!" says a sign that cries out for an apostrophe. "ANTIQUE,S," says another, bizarrely. "Pansy's ready", we learn to our considerable interest ("Is she?"), as we browse among the bedding plants.
In Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss dares to say that, with our system of punctuation patently endangered, it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them for the wonderful and necessary things they are. This is a book for people who love punctuation and get upset about it.

I

Answer 7

Most people's attitude to punctuation in general is pretty sad. Apparently those that care need to get a life and it's all very trivial, but the intolerant ones that think that will moments later go and post rubbish about people throwing a ball around or what clothes they like to wear. But the proper use of the one all-important tool for communication is trivial is it?

Personally I like to be able to understand what people write. I don't like to be left in doubt by the ambiguities created by bad punctuation. To use one of Lynne Truss's many examples: "FAN'S FURY AT STADIUM INQUIRY": this means that a single fan was livid, who knows about the rest?

To the intolerant telling us to get a life, for some people this IS their life. Publishers, editors, journalists, translators, teachers, and many more have to get this stuff right. As a translator myself I have a unique insight into how poorly written foreign texts can cause me problems because poor punctuation and word order make several meanings possible. Even if you don't think it's important, what do you think holds together concepts like globalisation? Language. It IS important. Is it too much to ask that you at least make an effort to get it right?

There are a multitude of poor apostrophe uses: one that proliferates is the unncessary apostrophe in plurals, such as "1000's of DVD's for sale". Both are wrong. Even the use of the apostrophe in 1960's is debatable. People also have a problem differentiating between "it's" (it is) and "its" (possessive; I can't find its tail).

It's off topic but a couple of people have mentioned it, and it gets on my nerves too - not because of the mistake itself but because people who go around purporting myths thinking themselves to be the wielders of the truth when they are completely wrong are annoying: "me" is used in the 'object' position i.e.the receiver of a verb's action. "I" is used in the 'subject' position, i.e. the doer of the verb. So, "John and I went to the cinema" but "there is no ill will between you and me". If in doubt, never use 'I' after a preposition. Please stop spreading false grammar. The 'me' in the question is correct.

EDIT: Thanks Nige, it doesn't stop the illiterates from giving their predictable thumbs downs though. You made a good point, which got me thinking. Here's what I found out: "Traditionalists sometimes argue, for example, that she's younger than me and I've not been here as long as her are incorrect and that the correct forms are she's younger than I and I've not been here as long as she. This is based on the assumption that than and as are conjunctions and so the personal pronoun is still subjective even though there is no verb (in full form it would be she's younger than I am). Yet for most native speakers the supposed 'correct' form does not sound natural at all and is almost never used in speech. It would perhaps be more accurate to say that, in modern English, those personal pronouns listed above as being objective are used neutrally i.e. they are used in all cases where the pronoun is not explicitly subjective. From this it follows that, despite the objections of prescriptive grammarians (whose arguments are based on Latin rather than English), it is standard accepted English to use any of the following: Who is it? It's me!; she's taller than him; I didn't do as well as her.", OED (CD-ROM version)

Answer 8

Yes it's very annoying. It's even more annoying when they don't put in an apostrophe that is needed though. How are you supposed to know what people are talking about if they don't make it clear when things are plural, possesions or abbreviations.

Answer 9

Yes, I also find it very irritating. One other pet hate of mine is the use of the apostrophe in years eg, when something occurred in the '1970's' or '1980's' these are not possessive. You can say '1960's music' for instance which is possessive.

Answer 10

Yes i'm a typist and bad grammer really annoys me, particularly comma use, for example when people put a comma followed by the word and.
I remember learning this stuff at primary school so why do people find it so hard to grasp?