Grammar Police v Wedding Party *MNHQ tweaked title at OP's request*

[WillLiveLifeAgain]

I'm usually OK with grammar but this one has me scratching my head. Probably lack of sleep (not over this).

Went to a wedding at the weekend. They had one of those neon signs with their surname but added an apostrophe. So it said

The Smith's (name changed)

Shouldn't it have said The Smiths? There were four of them including children. Not one belonging to something/someone.

I'm very happy to be proved wrong. I'm not a grammar nazi but would hope something like that would have been right?

I know this is AIBU so disclaimer obviously what matters is the happy marriage of two loving people not an apostrophe.

I have heard it called "the Greengrocers' apostrophe"

I once saw a brand new Mercedes Sprinter with what looked to be an expensive livery promoting Bridle Dress'es.
The number of variations on Accommodation I've seen on expensive looking hotel signs is astonishing, numerous permutations of the c and m.

@honeybeetheoneandonly - so clever! Honestly, thus tattoo is teh gift that keeps giving 😀

I've definitely noticed an uptick in the number of apostrophes used in plurals, and it drives me bonkers.

We received a lovely wedding gift last year but it was labelled "The Smith's" rather than "The Smiths" and I just can't bring myself to use it in public!

I voted YABU for trivialising the holocaust by using nazi in this context. The Nazis murdered millions of people.

You are right about the apostrophe, however.

In our former town the butcher would ask me to run an eye over his apostrophes, I told him once to leave them out, fewer people notice a missing apostrophe than an incorrect one.

This is a strange thread. OP clearly didn't actually need to clarify their understanding of the punctuation at all if they can't bear to look at a blackboard which says 'Pizza's'.

If you wanted an entertaining thread to mock The Smiths on a Tuesday afternoon then why not just say so?

With my grumpy old pedant’s hat on ‘Donuts’ irritates me anyway - it’s doughnuts! Made with dough, not ‘do’!

A y on the end would make that better.

Eh?

I have requested Mumsnet amend the title and OP. I have apologised for my ill judged use of the term but do not require a history lesson.

Maybe it was two women getting married, both of them being called Sharon.

But then we're back to the issue in the OP again...!

Contrary to your OP, you knew perfectly well that the apostrophe was incorrect.

Stranger on Mumsnet, thank you for knowing me better than I know myself. Only on AIBU.

I bought my friend and her husband a sign I knew she'd love with her new married name. Her new surname ends with an S so the sign I ordered ends with 'es' after their surname ("Joneses" as a similar example). She has never displayed it but since then has posted an awful lot on social media referring to her family as 's ("Jones's"). I didn't get a thank you. I wish I hadn't bought it. I'm not even 100% confident writing this that I got it right anyway now

If I'd simply wanted to mock my friends on Mumsnet I would have. I didn't.

But shouldn't they just know without checking?

I understand spelling - there might be some tricky ones that aren't well known.

But apostrophes? They're really not hard. I don't understand why people have such block with them

And yes, they are explicitly taught in the National Curriculum

Let's just hope it didn't go the other way, and they didn't have it tattooed just above/before their bumhole - which is not only already in the shape of a 'nothing', but from time to time........

And?

Are you new to the Internet?

Would be a bit rude to only refer to one person's wedding, though. 😅

All I can say is: IDIOTS!

Often, it goes the other way, and a startling number of signwriters and printers will already have appalling grammar knowledge.

It might not be that they don't have time/can't be bothered/don't want the grief of correcting a customer's spelling or grammar; but in fact, they may be presented with something that is correct and then go out of their way to 'correct' it, according to their own wrong assumptions!

There wrong. Your right.

I followed a van the other day that had 'Cheer up, your driving a great car' in decals on the back. It was a decal company van so you think they'd have checked it!

have not rtft: YABVVVU to use the word Nazi about anything other than the National Socialist Party.

It diminishes what they did. (am probably the 94th person to say that)

Unfortunately all this poor grammar has become normalised to many people

It really is! You can probably also blame the Etsy seller, I see so many personalised Christmas decorations being advertised with incorrect apostrophes. Especially during covid when it has little pictures of all the things related to covid, we bought one and it had an incorrect apostrophe. Requested a correct replacement and gave the wrong one to MIL 😆

So basically both buyer and seller get it wrong and don't know the difference