Friday, January 25, 2008

Apostrophe Catastrophe?

"Do you adore clean, correct sentences? Do ungrammatical advertisements make you cringe?

We understand completely, and this is why the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar and Encarta have designated March 4, 2008 as National Grammar Day.

We owe much to our mother tongue. It is through speech and writing that we understand each other and can attend to our needs and differences. If we don't respect and honor the rules of English, we lose our ability to communicate clearly and well with each other. In short, we invite mayhem, misery, madness, and inevitably even more bad things that start with letters other than M."

(via Martha Brockenbrough, a Queen (Martha)Bee at both SPOGG and Encarta)

And now, since I've endorsed this event, I suppose I really ought to write the Silk Road webmaster and ask for an apostrophrectomy.

On that note: Confusing "its" and "it's" I understand. Insisting on using an instrument to adjoin an "s" to a proper noun ("Shall we visit the Vincenti's?") when you don't use it to pluralize a common noun ("Only if they're serving those wrap's!"), I understand less, but OK. But a sign in a bakery like "Come try our bun's" give me an itch I can 't stratch. I just don't want to be imagining the things that their buns might be in possession of.

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