Eats, Shoots & Leaves - Lynne Truss [15]
So what are the jobs an apostrophe currently has on its CV? Before we start tearing out our hair at sloppy, ignorant current usage, first let us acknowledge the sobering wisdom of the Oxford Companion to English Literature: “There never was a golden age in which the rules for the possessive apostrophe were clear-cut and known, understood and followed by most educated people.” And then let us check that we know the rules of what modern grammarians call “possessive determiners” and “possessive pronouns” – none of which requires an apostrophe.
Possessive determiners
my our
your your
his their
her their
its their
Possessive pronouns
mine ours
yours yours
his theirs
hers theirs
its theirs
And now, let us just count the various important tasks the apostrophe is obliged to execute every day.
1 It indicates a possessive in a singular noun:
The boy’s hat
The First Lord of the Admiralty’s rather smart front door
This seems simple. But not so fast, Batman. When the possessor is plural, but does not end in an “s”, the apostrophe similarly precedes the “s”:
The children’s playground
The women’s movement
But when the possessor is a regular plural, the apostrophe follows the “s”:
The boys’ hats (more than one boy)
The babies’ bibs
I apologise if you know all this, but the point is many, many people do not. Why else would they open a large play area for children, hang up a sign saying “Giant Kid’s Playground”, and then wonder why everyone stays away from it? (Answer: everyone is scared of the Giant Kid.)
2 It indicates time or quantity:
In one week’s time
Four yards’ worth
Two weeks’ notice (Warner Brothers, take note)
3 It indicates the omission of figures in dates:
The summer of ’68
4 It indicates the omission of letters:
We can’t go to Jo’burg (We cannot go to Johannesburg – perhaps because we can’t spell the middle bit)
She’d’ve had the cat-o’-nine-tails, I s’pose, if we hadn’t stopped ’im (She would have had a right old lashing, I reckon, if we had not intervened)
However, it is generally accepted that familiar contractions such as bus (omnibus), flu (influenza), phone (telephone), photo (photograph) and cello (violoncello) no longer require apologetic apostrophes. In fact to write “Any of that wine left in the ’fridge, dear?” looks today self-conscious, not to say poncey. Other contractions have made the full leap into new words, anyway. There is simply nowhere to hang an apostrophe on “nuke” (explode a nuclear device), “telly” (television) or “pram” (perambulator) – although, believe me, people have tried.
Most famously of all, the apostrophe of omission creates the word “it’s”:
It’s your turn (it is your turn)
It’s got very cold (it has got very cold)
It’s a braw bricht moonlicht nicht the nicht (no idea)
To those who care about punctuation, a sentence such as “Thank God its Friday” (without the apostrophe) rouses feelings not only of despair but of violence. The confusion of the possessive “its” (no apostrophe) with the contractive “it’s” (with apostrophe) is an unequivocal signal of illiteracy and sets off a simple Pavlovian “kill” response in the average stickler. The rule is: the word “it’s” (with apostrophe) stands for “it is” or “it has”. If the word does not stand for “it is” or “it has” then what you require is “its”. This is extremely easy to grasp. Getting your itses mixed up is the greatest solecism in the world of punctuation. No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, “Good food at it’s best”, you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked