Comments on: Malapostrophication, crap marketing agencies, and why its they’re fault you’re business look’s dumb

By: James

James — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:44:12 +0000

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.

By: Of apostrophes and other animals

Of apostrophes and other animals — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:50:43 +0000

[…] wrote a fantastic entry recently entitled Malapostrophication, crap marketing agencies, and why its they’re fault you’re business look’s…. Just in case you don’t go through my blogroll every day, you […]

By: JNM

JNM — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:27:10 +0000

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-schmich_both_02apr02,0,3247109.column

I thought that you might appreciate poor grammar occurring in Chicago.

By: Erin

Erin — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 01:06:31 +0000

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.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 06:55:15 +0000

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 :)

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:32:37 +0000

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.

By: Meg

Meg — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 08:52:57 +0000

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…”

By: dxg

dxg — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:27:23 +0000

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…

By: dxg

dxg — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:25:02 +0000

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.

By: Jem

Jem — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 13:54:12 +0000

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 :)

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:56:26 +0000

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.

By: Katie Lee

Katie Lee — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 10:33:26 +0000

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.

By: Meg

Meg — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 10:15:48 +0000

Anna, that’s level 3 at LEAST. In fact, I give that a special award for dumbnes’s ;)

By: Anna

Anna — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 01:16:49 +0000

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.

By: William T

William T — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 12:08:48 +0000

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.)