Common heretical uses of apostrophes and how to avoid them
Today I am Plain English-reviewing a glossary of curriculum terminology written by a major UK education body. It is full of poor grammar.
For example, the writer uses which where they should use that, but they are so oblivious to their error that they've inserted commas to fool the MS Word grammarcheck. This produces sentences like The part of the curriculum, which is compulsory for all students.
I would love to say this shocks me, but it doesn't. I rarely see a teacher-developed resource that doesn't contain at least one grammatical error. Their apostrophes in particular are all over the place, commonly the likes of:
1. DVD's
usual justification
If you take something out you have to put something back in.
why this is wrong
This is a weird confusion of several English usage rules. It confuses the possessive apostrophe rule (which is irrelevant here, because this is pluralisation) with abbreviation and contraction. You have to 'put something in if you take something out' when you contract (eg, making could not into couldn't) but Digital Versatile Disc to DVD is not contraction, it's abbreviation. Rarely full stops are placed between the letters to indicate abbreviation (D.V.D.) but never apostrophes (D'V'D'). To make DVD plural, you simply add an s, making DVDs.
2. hijab's
usual justification
Add an apostrophe to pluralise any foreign word.
why this is wrong
You do not add an apostrophe when pluralising; the plural of hijab is hijabs. Although using the singular of a foreign word to mean the plural is usually fine and sometimes more correct. This is the case for maori words, eg, I went to the rock pools and collected 30 kina.
3. tattoo's
usual justification
Add an apostrophe to pluralise any word that ends with a vowel.
why this is wrong
You do not add an apostrophe when pluralising; the plural of tattoo is tattoos.
All of the above apostrophe insertions are right if meaning the singular object's possession of the next word, eg, her tattoo's colouring is incomplete, her hijab's decoration is lovely or my DVD's case is broken.
I thought that Ms Eats Shoots and Leaves sorted this out, but it seems that few teachers were paying attention. This is nothing new. At my school we usually got vague or inconsistent answers when we asked about apostrophes, leading us to think that there weren't rules at all. My mother, Inglewood High School dux 1968, also gets it wrong quite often.
Teachers though. I find it hard to knock them wholeheartedly. Have you seen them? They get up in front of kids and say stuff. It's amazing.
For example, the writer uses which where they should use that, but they are so oblivious to their error that they've inserted commas to fool the MS Word grammarcheck. This produces sentences like The part of the curriculum, which is compulsory for all students.
I would love to say this shocks me, but it doesn't. I rarely see a teacher-developed resource that doesn't contain at least one grammatical error. Their apostrophes in particular are all over the place, commonly the likes of:
1. DVD's
usual justification
If you take something out you have to put something back in.
why this is wrong
This is a weird confusion of several English usage rules. It confuses the possessive apostrophe rule (which is irrelevant here, because this is pluralisation) with abbreviation and contraction. You have to 'put something in if you take something out' when you contract (eg, making could not into couldn't) but Digital Versatile Disc to DVD is not contraction, it's abbreviation. Rarely full stops are placed between the letters to indicate abbreviation (D.V.D.) but never apostrophes (D'V'D'). To make DVD plural, you simply add an s, making DVDs.
2. hijab's
usual justification
Add an apostrophe to pluralise any foreign word.
why this is wrong
You do not add an apostrophe when pluralising; the plural of hijab is hijabs. Although using the singular of a foreign word to mean the plural is usually fine and sometimes more correct. This is the case for maori words, eg, I went to the rock pools and collected 30 kina.
3. tattoo's
usual justification
Add an apostrophe to pluralise any word that ends with a vowel.
why this is wrong
You do not add an apostrophe when pluralising; the plural of tattoo is tattoos.
All of the above apostrophe insertions are right if meaning the singular object's possession of the next word, eg, her tattoo's colouring is incomplete, her hijab's decoration is lovely or my DVD's case is broken.
I thought that Ms Eats Shoots and Leaves sorted this out, but it seems that few teachers were paying attention. This is nothing new. At my school we usually got vague or inconsistent answers when we asked about apostrophes, leading us to think that there weren't rules at all. My mother, Inglewood High School dux 1968, also gets it wrong quite often.
Teachers though. I find it hard to knock them wholeheartedly. Have you seen them? They get up in front of kids and say stuff. It's amazing.