Arizona justice condones apostrophe abuse !
 
Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson pleaded guilty on August 11 for defacing a more than 60-year-old, hand-painted sign at Grand Canyon National Park on March 28. What was their crime? They used a marker to cover an erroneous apostrophe, put the apostrophe in its proper place with white-out and added a comma. They toured the United States this spring, wiping out errors on government and private signs.
24/08/08
APOSTROTWADDLE in HIGH PLACES Over recent decades people, who in less dumbed-down and phonics-infested times would have known better, have been suggesting that the apostrophe should be allowed to fall into disuse. If we lost the apostrophe it would be a sad curtailing of precision in meaning and the range of possible expression in writing. What the apostrotwaddlers do not know is that: the apostrophe is important in the written representation of meaning. the patterns of its use are straightforward, simple and accessible. The lamentable confusion arises because we now have students in schools being taught by a generation of teachers who themselves were never taught how to use it. And even when the apostrophe is, perfunctorily, taught the instruction is often, in true phonics fashion, frequently both incomplete and faulty. The distinguished writer Bill Bryson has commented that widespread and increasing apotrophe abuse in public “is inexcusable and those who make it are linguistic Neanderthals". APOSTROFACTS The apostrophe has two orthographic uses. It can signal that a letter or letters are missing from a spelling that has become shortened. Such spellings are called ‘contractions’. <what( i)s> → <what’s> 
 <can(no)t> → <can’t> You will find resources for understanding the contraction apostrophe in Kit 3 Theme L of the Spelling Tool Box. It can signal that a noun or noun group is in a possessive or ‘genitival’ form <the doctor’s> → belonging to the doctor <the doctors’> → belonging to the doctors
<the man’s> → belonging to the man <the men’s> → belonging to the men <the lady’s> → belonging to the lady <the ladies’> → belonging to the ladies You will find resources for understanding the possessive apostrophe in Kit 4 Theme E of the Spelling Tool Box. THE ENTERTAINING SIDE of APOSTROPHE ABUSE I myself do not get angry at the perpetrators of apostrophe abuse. I simply treat the orthographic howlers of these ‘linguistic Neanderthals’ as a rich source of pitying mirth in the face of the ludicrosity of their blunders. Indeed, I have had many joyous moments working with students who, after working with the Tool Box resources on the apostrophe, scour their neighbourhood in quest of apostrophic nonsense. One group of students in England took a special interest in cases of apostrophe omission. The owner of a local house named VICARS RETREAT was visited by a young neighbour enquiring whether the house name was really a notice and if it was, what were the vicars retreating from! As she pointed out to the astonished houseowner, as it stood <vicars retreat> could only be: a simple statement signifying that ‘vicars retreat’ from some unspecified point for some unspecified reason, or... an imperative addressed to visiting vicars telling them to retreat. I subsequenty learned from the houseowner concerned that the young orthographic vigilante had offered to help him put the sign right. “Is the retreat for just one vicar or for more than one vicar?” she asked, and then explained to him which of the two possible forms <VICAR’S RETREAT> and <VICARS’ RETREAT> would match each meaning. The hospital in the same area was also visited. The target was a notice bearing the legend PATIENTS ENTRANCE - no apostrophe in sight. As it stands this notice can only mean, ‘Patients are entrancing,’ and would have to be pronounced as “patients entránce“ with the stress on the last syllable. While it could be reassuring to know that hospital staff find their customers entrancing, they should more accurately display a sign bearing the words, “ PATIENTS’ ENTRANCE”: they would then know where to go in!  Consider this wonderful sign. In the absence of an apostrophe, it only makes sense if we take <oven> to be a verb. As it stands, it is a statement that bakers oven, though how often they are ovening is not specified. Playing with the apostrophe I heartily encourage you to engage your students in apostrophe play. One exercise is to produce pairs of homophonic statements (whose meanings are thus indistinguishable in speech) in which one contains an apostrophe. Here’s (not <hears>!) an example from the novelist Kingsley Amis. Those things over there are my husband's. (Those things over there belong to my husband.) Those things over there are my husbands. (I'm married to those objects over there.) Other exercises involve constructing phrases with aposrophes (or absence of them) that, while probably sounding odd, still make lexical sense. Here are some starter suggestions. The doctors cook away when the doctors’ cook’s away. Imagine the goose’s pleasure at the geese’s honking. How amiss when the miss's missus misses the point. Collect notices that make incomplete statements and amuse yourselves with proposing possible completions. Here’s one to start you off. So go to it, Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson, and keep up the good work. More power to your elbows - or, perhaps more appropriately, may your elbows’ power be increased. Shame on you, Arizona ‘Justice’!