People who don't know how to use apostrophes....

[itsaich]

I hope someone can enlighten me. I know there are lots of you out there who don't actually know what an apostrophe is for but use them anyway. I'm just curious to hear why you use them when you do?

I've seen people for instance write something like

I went to the shop's to buy sweets.

Why would you put the apostrophe in the word "shops"? But not "sweets"?

I know you have rules, I just want to know what they are. Or do you just kind of think 'huh, a little line would look nice there' and plop one in for good measure?

Do you maybe just stick them places because you think 'must be time for an apostrophe'?

Enlighten me please.

I also don't find the rules regarding usage difficult, so I genuinely don't know why other people do

I bet lots of people can do things easily that you can't. Wind your neck in.

@itsaich

couldn't answer you, see this is what I find strange. I do think some people think 'not put one for a while, I'll just pop one before this S'

why are you persisting in acting like a sneery cow?

When one receives a missive from school, one tends to want them to be able to spell and use punctuation correctly. After all, they are the ones who are supposed to be teaching English to the next generation. When one finds errors in their communications, one is peeved.

@Surtsey so your “solution” was to be “performance peeved”. Did it help?

Or do you just kind of think 'huh, a little line would look nice there' and plop one in for good measure?

I like this and hope it is the case. More power to them

One tends to agree; however, one also does not want to be "that parent," so one picks one's battles.

I always think this is something people say but don't actually do.

Taking it at face value, did you send them back signed by you so they knew who it was, or anonymously? If anonymously that shows you know you're being a bit of a dick. If you signed it from yourself at least the teachers would know who it was that was being a bit of a dick...

IME of multiple schools it's not teachers that write the newsletters, it's reception/admin staff, so they're not responsible for teaching your DC, so theres really no need to make them feel like shit so you can feel superior.

It’s not really about being “that parent” it’s about achieving the outcome you are looking for and I wouldn’t imagine it helped the children receive better teaching and possibly quite the opposite.
Polite, constructive action is what is needed, not petulance.

I think that last "theres" should have had an apostrophe oh the irony

In my defence, I spent 5 minutes trying to remember the word "shower" before. I knew there was a word for it and I knew it started with "sh" but I couldn't get it. Welcome to the world of people with shit SPAG!

I don't know how to use semicolons so I just put them in where it feels like they should go if that makes sense.

I'm assuming the apostrophe people do the same.

For me
As a dyslexic with complete grammar blindness it's like I have a vague muscle memory of being taught to use an apostrophe, comma, capital letter or whatever with a word/sentence combo in the dim and distant past and so it just happens without much conscious thought.
Rereading my essays is at times hilarious.

@ohfook , if you don't know how to use semicolons, don't use them.

There's a current thread 'Christian's on contraception'. I was tempted to ask 'Who is Christian?'

I have never corrected a school newsletter or random communication from school. I have twice corrected teachers who marked my children down for "errors" that were not errors, but teacher mistakes because the teachers did not know the correct grammar or punctuation. That's what I mean by picking my battles.

This

Someone did!

The old rule was that an apostrophe was used in the plural of a word that wasn’t usually pluralised. I think this is probably still useful in a phrase like ‘do’s and don’t’s’ or would that seem wrong to everyone? I think that is one reason they tend to creep in to the plural of acronyms like MOT’s.

It's perfectly obvious why imo. It's not that they have their own set of fixed but wrong rules! People know that apostrophes are a thing they should use, but aren't sure of the rules, so when they're writing or typing and they write a word ending in 's', they sometimes remember apostrophes are a thing, and think 'Ooh - should there be an apostrophe there?' and sometimes they decide there should, and sometimes they decide there shouldn't. But as they don't understand the rules, they often don't get it right.

I teach languages and spend quite a lot of time correcting sentences and reflecting on what causes my students' mistakes - carelessness, a lack of understanding etc. What you describe is typical of someone who knows there's a grammatical rule about something and maybe partially understands it, but not enough to actually reliably apply it. So rather than risking looking as though they don't know about the rule at all, they apply it randomly and hope for the best!

And sometimes decades such a previous poster who referred to the 1970's. I use 1970s, which is what most style manuals prefer.

I used to work in database admin. There was a principal analyst in an application team who used to send me documents. He couldn't tell the difference between it's and its. After a couple of paragraphs, all I could notice was the spelling/grammatical errors. If the purpose of language is to communicate clearly, he failed miserably. Not just me, he drove the whole team mad with it.

The apostrophes are running wild and free today 😊.

Yes. I think it’s just like any other spelling mistake. It looks right because it looks familiar. There may be more to it, but probably not that much more.

'Performance peeved' no. Annoyed that a school was incapable of producing documents without basic errors, yes.

I once received an apology from the head of year regarding homework set by the science teacher. They said that they would tighten up on procedures.

Wouldn’t it have been quicker just to talk to the science teacher?

I know there are lots of you out there who don't actually know what an apostrophe is for

Who are you actually talking to, as I doubt they frequent Pedants’ Corner?

Some people are good at grammar, some at maths, some at art etc. I don’t think it’s right to attack those who struggle with grammar in causal communications. However, I do think it’s important that professional copy and signage is grammatically correct.

It irks me a little when I see professionally printed signs and publications with incorrect apostrophes.

I do think that apostrophes are some of the easiest errors to spot, though, which is why they grate so much.

I regularly also see incorrect spellings - compliment when it should be complement, discrete when it should be discreet, stationary when it should be stationery etc. As well as other issues such as poor hyphenation, misuse of semicolons and many other less obvious mistakes.

I think good grammar is important but shouldn’t be used as a way to look down on others. However, if you are printing something that can’t be changed, get it proofed for god’s sake!

Autocorrect and predictive text changes a lot of things. I notice ‘well’ being changed to ‘we’ll’ a lot and vice versa. I usually correct it, but sometimes it slips in unnoticed.