Call the Authorities! Call the Authorities

Unfortunately, for the matter which I am about to discuss, there are no authorities to call, nobody who has a way of enforcing the strict rules which are being violated - flagrantly.

I know that it's a pet peeve, a small peeve, a matter that most people (educated or otherwise) consider beneath concern. But to me, it is so much more than that. I hope here to explain what the problem is, and why it should be cared about.

Ladies and gentlemen, I speak to you today on behalf of the apostrophe (a-POS-tro-fee). If you're using the North American QWERTY keyboard, it's that little tick that shares a key with the quotation mark ("). In the English language, the apostrophe is primarily used to denote the possessive: Bob's bike; Sheila's dog; The ducklings' mother. It is also used to denote contraction: I didn't do it; You'd better do as he says. In these cases, it's used as a sort of placeholder for the missing letter.

That's all fine and dandy. Most English speakers know these rules, and try to apply them universally. So why the fuss? Well, my friends, there are three good reasons for this. My friend Eric had a much better Apostrophe page; I'm merely using his idea and generating a pallid copy, because I cannot find a draft (online or otherwise) of his page.

From what I have seen in advertising, packaging and other print and online media, there are three key types of apostrophe abuse:

1. Pluralization through apostrophe
Can this word be pluralized? How do I refer to more than one CEO? What about brand names, proper names, foreign words, etc.? Most editors, in response to these questions, use the apostrophe as a break between the word and its plural: the succession of CEO's; a string of cliché's; etc. It seems that this is a compromise between not including the "s" (which would sound awkward) and just slapping it on and erring on the other side.

Pluralizing acronyms is fairly new, and we seem to have an increased propensity nowadays for using foreign or invented words in our everyday speech. Nevertheless, pluralization has never been in the domain of the apostrophe. CEOs do what they want; and clichés will always be part of our existence.

2. The missing apostrophe
Okay, I have to acknowledge that even my mother, who was an English teacher (and got a degree - though I can't remember which - in English), thinks I'm being too picky on this one. There are many words (Hallowe'en and the 'flu are my two favourite examples) for which the apostrophe is part of the word, often because they are contractions of longer words or phrases (All Hallow's Eve, influenza).

Nowadays, though, these apostrophes have been dropped. I live in Toronto, where the Government of Ontario has a media campaign going that encourages everybody to get their 'flu shots. Of course, not a single ad spells 'flu with the apostrophe. (I suppose that if one did, then they all would...) I'm not anal enough to write them and demand change, but the thought has often crossed my mind of riding the subway equipped with some Liquid Paper™ (or Whiteout™, if you prefer) in order to correct the ads (it's usually white text on a blue background). In my mind, it's the same philosophy that changes "night" to "nite" (a separate rant altogether, should I muster the time and energy) that has simplified these words. Why is it a big deal? It changes the language and obscures the origins of the words. Worse yet, it conforms to the lowest common denominator, as if admitting that we have to dumb everything down because we no longer know how to educate ourselves.

That's not a concession I'm willing to make.

3. "Its" vs. "it's"
Though a very particular example of apostrophe misuse, this is by far and away the most prevalent abuse of the apostrophe. The two words, "its" and "it's," have very specific meanings - there is no ambiguity to either. The former is a possessive pronoun, meaning "belonging to it." The door squeaks because its hinges need oiling. Buy this car: its power will blow you away! "It's," on the other hand, is a contraction of "it is." It's five o'clock. It's nice to see you. It's frustrating to see the rampant abuse of apostrophes everywhere.

So why do people make this mistake? Why does the apostrophe sneak in where it shouldn't be? Why is it omitted?

It's often mistakenly used because people associate the possessive with the apostrophe. Bob's, Jane's, it's. Belonging to it. Right? Wrong. "It" isn't a name: it's a pronoun. You don't say "you's" - you say "your." My. Our. (As well as Mine, Ours, Yours, Its.) Pronouns have special possessive forms, so "'s" does not need to be added. But for a culture with so much written material surrounding us, we learn quite a lot of our communication skills - our grammar, our vocabulary - verbally. As a result, when we hear "its," we associate it with the most common way of forming a possessive form. The magically appearing apostrophe is the result.

What about the opposite case? If people are going to insert apostrophes where they don't belong, why do some people make the opposite mistake? My only guess is that they've been warned that the word "its" appears when you expect it to be "it's," so they are over-cautious, as it were. They remove it, not out of adherence to any rule, but because they think that their intuition is misleading them. People don't often think about why the word should be one way or the other. We spend most of our time writing on auto-pilot.

What about its'? Is that even a word?

Sure it is. It refers something that belongs to something (or someone) that belongs to "it." Want an example? I'm afraid that it has to be horribly contrived. If you're referring to a house's front door's knob, then you could refer to it as its' knob. Not very convenient, and almost never used. People don't usually imply two levels of abstraction into a single possessive pronoun.

It might seem like a bit of a stretch, but I find that every grammatical concession of this sort hurts us in the long run. If we're going to bend the rules a bit this time 'round (note the apostrophe replacing the "a"), what's to stop us from doing the same thing next time? And the time after? As a matter of fact, why have rules of grammar at all? We've already gone so far to simplify the language (just try using "thee" and "thou" in everyday speech, and see how far it gets thee, if thou knowst in the first place how to use them properly), why not keep going? In my opinion - and I'm sure there are studies to back me up (there always are) - language influences thought. The more you compromise the language, the more you limit the intricacy and diversity of thought possible. The more you remove from the structure of a language, the more goes missing from the structure of thought, which can ultimately progress to deterioration of the structure of interactions and society.

I'm not saying that society will collapse because people abuse the poor apostrophe. I concede that my tone is somewhat alarmist. But with any luck, there's something in here to give you pause for thought, pause enough to see the trends I'm referring to (on whatever scale they may exist). If you agree with those trends and those conclusions, then perhaps I can convince you that a certain excess of starch is necessary in our maintenance of the language, for there is so much culture and history embedded in the very words we use.