Lately I've been fixating on misuse of the apostrophe. The lovely apostrophe, though not nearly as fetching as a semicolon, is nevertheless a marvelous mark of punctuation. And so I lament! How it loses its power when well-meaning but ill-informed people toss it into a word, believing it necessary to make a word plural or past tense! I did it myself last week, writing that we had subpoena'd someone. My inner proofreader recoiled, and I rephrased the sentence, giving it a different verb, and looked it up later. (I'm sure you're aching to know that the correct spelling of the past tense to subpoena is subpoenaed.)
You want proof? Think that surely you are doing it correctly? Check out this wikiHow page on apostrophes. Or this grammar rule page. Or this one. Or see this site dedicated to Apostrophe Protection. Those Brits are oh-so-polite:
We are aware of the way the English language is evolving during use, and do not intend any direct criticism of those who have made the mistakes above. We are just reminding all writers of English text, whether on notices or in documents of any type, of the correct usage of the apostrophe should you wish to put right mistakes you may have inadvertently made.For you visual learners, see the flickr pool of public apostrophe misuse.
Until I went to graduate school and well-paid legal writing professors told me that it is perfectly acceptable (in their warped universe) to start a sentence with And, But, or Because, that particular writing choice used to bug me too. And now I do at incessantly. So perhaps I just need some grammatic authority to tell me to get over myself for cringing over the alleged apostrophe abuse.
Maybe I just need to get laid and transform the obsessive-squirmy into some sexy-squirmy. Soon, friends. Soon.
* * *
3 comments:
i have an inner editor-proofreader too. i cringe at other's grammar mistakes and cringe when i find myself making them. but i am particularly squirmy about spelling. that is my domain and i cringe the way my friend faith cringes at grammar errors when words are misspelled-on notices, posters, signs, in books, business letters.
i also have an accent editor. i love accents on other people but do not like them on myself. particularly the texas twang. sometimes i will catch myself with a prolonged dipthong and i cringe. whenever a bit of an accent slips out on a word i immediately correct myself.
one must remain vigilant in one's speech lest they be unconsciously influenced by others.
I love that there is an entire post dedicated to this. Though I graduated two classes short of getting a second degree in English, I abandoned a whole load of things I learned about grammar to write the way I speak. BUT believe me, there are definitely certain grammar rules I just can't throw out the window.
"Subpoena'd" isn't incorrect, though, really, technically, is it, if one function of the beloved apostrophe is to hold the seat for a letter that's gone to the loo?
Well, correct or not, I think, holding the seat for the e in subpoena'd, she brings a bit of poetry to a rather unpoetic word.
And that's just nice.
Post a Comment