The Missing Apostrophe

All hail to thee, apostrophe. Prithee,

Why dost thou stray from where thou dost belong

Within a word considered rather long,

Where once, it seems, a  letter used to be?

Or from thy cherished spot before the S

To show a noun in the possessive case?

Forsooth, stray not, poor mite, but know thy place

Within the lexicon. Do not transgress!

Certes, ‘tis true, when there is more than one,

After the S thou findest thee a gig,

But never on a verb, that’s infra dig,

A solecism grave, that thou must shun.

Of all the marks of punctuat-i-un

Thou causest the most grief, to all and sun’.

The omission of an apostrophe in a Facebook post is likely to prove expensive for an Australian real estate agent, according to a ruling by a New South Wales judge. More on that later.

There are many apostrophe errors. Like the Oxford Comma, one even has a name: the Greengrocer’s Apostrophe, the apostrophe applied erroneously in front of an “s” indicating a plural, not possession, as in 

ORANGE’S  $2.29 a lb.

You don’t find many greengrocers these days, but the error is widespread. 

Other apostrophe errors can be named as well.

Pupils who listened to their teacher saying "put the apostrophe in front of the 's'", but missed the rest of the lesson, will put the apostrophe in front of every "s", as in the greengrocer's apostrophe error, or even worse, in the present tense of a third person singular verb, to commit the Verb Apostrophe Error.

The snail crawl's across the room.

The Cottage Sign Apostrophe Error is common in cottage country, where proud owners have erected a sign in front of their cabin, such as

SMITH’S HAVEN

when in fact the dwelling belongs to more than one Smith.

Then there’s the Boy’s Gym Error, which I have observed in schools, where a large facility is frequented by only one person, or the official perhaps has corrected this error, and now always places the apostrophe after an “s” with plural nouns to commit the Mens' Washroom Error. Unfortunately, if the unfortunate official is forced to correct his Mens’ Washroom error then he may go further and come up with Ladie’s Washroom.

The Boy's Gym error is ubiquitous. Many an institution is limited to having only one member. For short time, in the seventies, I was the only teacher in the Manitoba Teacher's Society.

In the Possessive It’s Error, the writer has forgotten that only as a contraction does “its” require an apostrophe, as in “It’s a nice day”, but not as a possessive, as in “The dog sat on its tail.” Possessive pronouns don’t have apostrophes, except in the King James Bible in the Sermon on the Mount. 

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for their’s is the kingdom of heaven.

Now the unfortunate official, and others who have not had the benefit of a solid grounding in the correct use of apostrophes, might be tempted to leave them out altogether. After all, it’s usually good advice: if you don’t know what you’re doing, do nothing. But not in the case of a foolish Australian realtor who in a post on Facebook accused his competitor of cheating his employee, or was it his employees?

Late on 22 October last year, Anthony Zadravic posted that another real estate agent was “selling multi million $ (sic) homes in Pearl Beach but can’t pay his employees superannuation” (Guardian, October 10, 2021).

In the absence of an apostrophe before the “s” to indicate a singular employee, a judge concluded that the Facebook accusation suggested that the practice of withholding contributions to the employees' superannuation funds was widespread, and refused to dismiss the case. Even if the damages awarded were minimal, the court costs were likely to be at least $160,000. 

I feel a bit sorry for the poor fellow. What provoked this folly? Had his rival called him a horse’s arse, with the apostrophe in the right place? And surely the post in question was more likely to do damage to the reputation of the writer than the rival. 

For more on these punctuation errors, and to see other posts, consult the Table of Contents.