Pet Peeves, Part 1

It’s an occupational hazard for an editor; I see errors all the time. Some of them, simple typos, such as the ones on the “crawl” at the bottom of the TV screen, I can accept (sort of), especially if they’re eventually corrected. With others, I’m not as forgiving. My local newspaper would (and might someday soon) take an entire post.

One thing I see so often, and it raises my blood pressure every single time, is one specific misuse of the apostrophe. I don’t understand why people turn a single noun into a plural by adding “apostrophe s” instead of just “s.” Why oh why oh why oh why? Where did they learn that? I see it on web sites, TV news graphics, in advertisements, editorial cartoons, the aforementioned newspaper, business letters, and other places I can’t think of at the moment. My favorite is when a single sentence or paragraph contains several plural nouns; some are done correctly and some are done incorrectly! These people obviously need a proofreader if not a full-blown copy editor.

Then there’s its vs. it’s. People are taught to use “apostrophe s” for possessive form, so “Karen’s book” is correct. Of course, when it comes to the English language, every rule has an exception (or two or three). The possessive form of it is its with no apostrophe, just like hers and ours. The only time to use it’s is when you’re using it as a contraction for it is.

I recently discovered a website devoted to this apostrophe misuse - apostropheabuse.com. It’s nice to know someone else feels as passionate about this as I do. The site is a collection of apostrophe mistakes people submit; I’m sure I’ll contribute some new ones as I see them.