I'm unsure what our pro-funetik speling frendz would have to say about this.

But I'm a-p-p-a-l-l-e-d. At the West Seattle Hi-Yu Festival Saturday, I came across a couple in a trailer who make those cute little wooden signs many families have near their mailbox or front door. You know, the ones that say "The Smith's," or "The Anderson's," or "The Fox's."

The distinguishing characteristic being that misplaced apostrophe, apparently meant to signal (as Dave Barry once tartly observed) that "an 's' is coming up."

Sadly, the domocile cannot be "The Anderson's" unless it belongs to one person named "The Anderson." The sign should read "The Andersons," or "Anderson."

I related this to "The Sign-Maker's," and they sheepishly said they'd heard all about it, and had even been read chapter and verse by an outraged school teacher. But they're not about to do it any differently, they insisted, because this is "what everyone wants."

Everyone who's quasi-literate, that is. For apostrophe abuse is a matter of international outrage (evident here, here, here and here).

It is also the subject of a surprisingly readable book by one Lynne Truss, titled, "Eats, Shoots & Leaves - The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation."

Truss explains, "...when other girls my age were attending the Isle of Wight Festival and having abortions, I bought a copy of Eric Partidge's 'Usage and Abusage'.." Truss writes that her book "...gives you permission to love punctuation" and understand it, rather than quickly skate by it in fear. Naturally, it became a bestseller in Britain.

I'm hoping the folks who run the "Sharis" family restaurant chain in Washington and Oregon will pick up a copy. Their website uses the apostrophe in some instances, but their logo and restaurant signs do not. This although the chain is named after one of the orginal owners - a woman known as "Shari."

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at July 12, 2004 01:30 PM

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