The Losing Apostrophe Battle

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“I can’t help feeling that our punctuation system, which has served the written word with grace and ingenuity for centuries, must not be allowed to disappear without a fight.”

—Lynne Truss, “Eats, Shoots and Leaves”
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I trust Ms. Truss is manning the barricades in her native Britain, where in Birmingham the city elders have decided to drop all apostrophes from street signs. An Associated Press story says officials concluded the pesky little tear-dropped symbol is “confusing and old-fashioned.” The phrase sparks the image of a slightly loopy aunt, perhaps too fond of sherry, who offers a guest a platter of crickets, when she meant to say crumpets.

“Eats, Shoots and Leaves” is the most spirited defense of proper punctuation since E.B. White’s “Elements of Style,” in my view. And it’s a lot funnier. I’ve bought and given away more than a dozen copies to fellow lovers of the language since its publication in 2003. The title comes from a joke. Here goes, straight from ES&L:

A panda walks into a café. 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 toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

“I’m a panda,” he says, at the door. “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.”

See what difference a comma makes? Of course, those of us fond of firing off guns at beer cans after a fish fry out in the country understand why the comma could have been misplaced. I love to attend a throw-down in the country, with cholesterol-clogging chow and cold beer, after which we blow away some innocent canisters or maybe try to hit some clay pigeons with shotguns. Then I head to the house to read, say, the New Yorker. Some would say I’m conflicted. I disagree.

But about punctuation there can be no compromise. We must fight for the apostrophe’s survival, the proper use of commas — indeed commit to battle the encroachment of text-messaging English (an oxymoron) upon our written word — preserve our language!

(I’m just waiting for a retired English teacher to parse the previous sentence and send the critique. It won’t take long, and I welcome it.)

I have rarely had a problem with proper use of apostrophes. (After writing a column for nearly 27 years, I’ve learned to hedge my pronouncements. Soon as I say “never had a problem” someone will produce a piece where I mixed up “its” and “it’s.”)

I like apostrophes. I have less of an issue with them than I do with commas, which I tend to use sparingly — like cayenne pepper on a platter of grilled vegetables. Just enough to spice up a sentence. Apostrophes either denote possession or missing letters as in a contraction. That’s a simplistic explanation but sufficient most of the time. But if I had a dollar for each instance in the paper we have incorrectly used “its” or its apostrophic brother, I would be able to partially replenish my 401K fund.

So why not just get rid of apostrophes, quit worrying about the little buggers? Let’s call it the Queens English, instead of the Queen’s English, to paraphrase the AP story. Or “Bills Barbecue,” instead of “Bill’s?” Who cares?

Well, clearly not enough of us, so here’s hoping the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Hence this piece. My dad is a retired sign-painter who plied his trade here for more than two decades. He carried around a well-worn paperback dictionary to make certain he didn’t misspell a word on a sign. Most often, he wanted to make sure he got the apostrophes right. He would cluck and shake his head as we drove around Longview, looking at signs. We did that quite often. It was cheap entertainment, listening to my dad critique sign-painting technique and point out poor punctuation, as well as the mortal sin — a misspelled word.

I don’t think there are near enough of us clucking our tongues at punctuation peccadilloes. Lynne Truss carries around a Sharpie to add apostrophes to signs when needed. She has her work cut out for her in England, apparently.

As do we here in the states. Grammar nerds, it’s time to unite and fight back.

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