Mar 12, 2008
Malapostrophication, crap marketing agencies, and why its they’re fault you’re business look’s dumb
Some of you who keep up with my Flickr stream will be aware that one of the things which crops up with alarming regularity in my camphone snaps is the misuse of apostrophes.
I am an apostrophe dullard: it’s true. I can’t help spotting them when they’re misused, and let me tell you it nearly killed me to write that headline up there. Seriously. I keep looking at it and wincing.
I classify public apostrophe abuse into three buckets:
1. Permissible Error
This usually means that the sign is handwritten, chalked or otherwise home-produced, and is generally an indication that the writer was in a hurry, or without English as a mother tongue, or both, and can therefore be permitted to make a small, apostrophe-sized slip once in a while. Classic greengrocer’s apostrophe territory.
2. Should Know Better
These are usually printed items which are created for a one-off, limited audience purpose. It tends to be that this usage is seen in charity shops, local church/school/community organisation newsletters and on the stand-up A-frame boards for independent delicatessens and sandwich shops. Most of these will have either been created by the proprietor or, occasionally, created by a signwriter acting under direct comission commission (oops!) from the owner. 99% of the time, it’s a plural error.
3. Utterly unforgivable
These are the real clangers. High distribution (vast print run - adverts, merchandise and the like), very visible channels (like billboards and television), otherwise high production values (design, or materials used) and - most importantly of all - very likely to have passed, in copy, design and approval stages, through the hands of several people, at least one of whom should have spotted the mistake. This is a quality issue, and is something that creative or marketing agencies (especially) are particularly bad at managing. Hang your heads in shame (and then get it together! It’s not that hard!)
After the jump, some other favourite examples of this latter type…
(For the record, I have scoured this post several times, convinced that I will have committed malapostrophication myself, in a classic enactment of sods law sod’s law sods’ law karma)
It drives me mad too. I’m so glad I’m not alone in this.
And me. I have been known to get a pen out of my pocket in a pub and correct their menu
‘s.The National Trust really should know better.
I have to say I saw the title for this post and went ‘Arrrgh’ and was all setup to post a scathing attack on your grammar.
Then I read the post.
Simon, I’ve already had several people ping me directly and tell me I’ve stuffed up in the headline.*
I know. It’s a joke.
I’m telling you, it’s killing me to leave it up there.
* Curiously, those who have pointed our my grammatical laxity in the title only seem to have noticed one of the four intentional boo-boos.
I’ll ‘fess up.
Upon seeing the title of this post I hastily contacted Meg to point out her errors (I pointed one out in the hope she’d spot the others). If I’d stopped to think I would’ve realised what was going on.
And if I’d actually started reading the post I would’ve saved my own blushes!!
I do get these wrong occasionally but not in my day job! Ouch.
You just can’t have your gateaux and spell it gateuax.
As well as the four intentional malapostrophications in the title, I presume you snuck in a deliberate speling misstake in “direct comission”…
Malapostrophication - marvelous neologism.
There’s a sash popularly worn by women out and about in Newcastle on pre-wedding party weekends. Aaaand I just Googled it and found this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/meg/73512183/in/photostream/
D’oh! I knew I’d managed to fuck up somehow. Thanks for spotting it. I’ll correct now…
I assume you’ve read Eats, shoots and leaves right?
I love finding these. Sometimes I post them to Grocer’s Apostrophe on Flickr, http://www.flickr.com/groups/77173807@N00/
As much as this bothers me too, I seem to make the mistake often myself. Not sure why the pinky is so geared to hitting that apostrophe key. Thankfully I manage to catch the mistake before hitting publish or print.
I am dismayed by the National Trust one, Its predecessor the Ministry of Works produced signs that were pure typographical artistry.
On the other hand, it could be worse. That example is from the (late, unlamented) One Railways. One. Railways. That was the name of the company. I leave it to your imagination how well its/their trains ran.
And there’s always mis-spellings on posters… right now Vodafone is encouraging people to “reign in your business costs” above a picture of someone holding what is clearly a pair of reins. Berks.
Ah! It’s not just me then!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thiefree/2327061924/
Took this one recently. Most upsetting.
Confusing when that happens. You weren’t wearing that sash? No it’s a spelling typo thing.
I once saw a menu board in a cake/coffee shop, listing their many “Gateaux’s” which, if nothing else, left we wondering what pronunciation to adopt.
If I may broaden this out, which do we feel is the best style guide to follow for general writing? I tried reading (an old copy of) The Guardian one, which I quite liked, but, to take an example, I noticed they recommended using “eg” and “ie” in place of “e.g.” and “i.e.”, which doesn’t seem to have much currency elsewhere. Similarly, whether you put a full stop inside or outside a closing bracket.
(Oh and by the way, much as Eats, Shoots and Leaves was very useful, I didn’t really like Lynne Truss’(s?) second book about manners very much. I was hoping for more in the way of advice and less whining.)
Gahhh… the photo I linked you to? Those signs advertising “iPod’s” are in every Carphone Warehouse in the country. Surely that pushes it up to a lvl 3.
Anna, that’s level 3 at LEAST. In fact, I give that a special award for dumbnes’s ;)
I’m obsessed with grammatical errors (totally with you on this apostrophes post), but I know that I’m guilty of making loads myself (I’m sure I’ve written “there’s plenty of ways” and “none of them are interested” many many times).
And it’s funny how often you meet total pedants who have blind spots for certain errors. They’re often the people who say “Meg was talking to Anna and I…” because they don’t understand when it’s “you and I” and “you and me”.
I think I may have just outed myself as a terrible bore. Again.
I’ve seen that Jack Daniel’s one too. Ack. The best I’ve ever seen was one of those ‘handwritten’ poems on a pub wall jobs which I saw in Wigan and began with the word: Im’. Yes, that’s ‘I’m', but with the apostrophe in the wrong place.
Laughed heartily at this entry, despite knowing that I occasionally slip in a rogue apostrophe or two (I type faster than I think, honestly!)
PS. spotted all four mistakes in the title :)
What’s wrong with the Jack Daniel’s one?
Jack Daniel’s is the brand name (presumably there was/is an actual person by that name…) and the top line is just a reduction of “Your friend is at Jack [Daniel's house / place / you name it (presumably)] …”
Confused.
Oh, and *I think* the National Trust one is meant to be possessive, referring to the work that the Trust performs. So it could also be correct, although it would imply that the Trust owns its work in some way which could be debated…
dxg - The Jack Daniel’s full text reads: “Your friend’s at Jack Daniel’s remind you to drink responsibly” which means that while Jack Daniel’s is totally fine (as you say, it’s the brand name, apostrophe and all) the line itself is either a badly punctuated pluralisation (should be “Your friends at Jack Daniel’s remind you to drink responsibly”) or, if referring to a specific friend who is at JD’s company/house/etc, then it’s poorly constructed (in which case, should be “Your friend’s at Jack Daniel’s and reminds you to drink responsibly”)
And on the National Trust front - I think it’s meant to be possessive, too, but possessive pronouns don’t use apostrophes.
Imagine if the National Trust was a woman, and the sign read “…needs money for her work of protecting…”. See? His/Her/Its/Their/Your/My.
The apostrophe indicates that it’s actually a contraction - short for it is, perhaps - which means that line doesn’t make sense at all: “….needs money for it is work of protecting…”
I think the possessive apostrophe is also a contraction, signifying the omission of the letter “i” in the Latin genitive suffix “-is”. And as for William T’s style guide question, I favour The Complete Plain Words by Sir Herbert Gowers, 2nd edition 1986 published by HMSO, now sadly out of print but with lots of used copies available on Amazon. Purest Mandarin English.
I have worked in those marketing agencies before. As a result, I’m always on the look out for it’s and its. To be honest it is the only grammatical rule I remember (which is most likely evident from this comment :)
Oh my god! I am sooooooooooooooo glad to know I am not alone. I sometimes think that my fixation with malapostrophication is merely an occupational hazard (I teach high school English. I know– clearly I am a masochist.), but there are OTHERS OUT THERE! I long to carry with me a packet of stickers that would allow me to insert apostrophes where appropriate and to blank them out where not.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-schmich_both_02apr02,0,3247109.column
I thought that you might appreciate poor grammar occurring in Chicago.
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Am with you here meish. Us and Lynne Truss are not alone.
It really is not rocket science getting this correct.
So many divs out there.