Stop me from doing something unbelievably rude!

[slayerette]

The person who writes the letters at my DS's Beaver Scout group has no idea how to use apostrophes. Basically, if the word ends in an s, she puts an apostrophe before it. It's driving me mad; I've just filled out the form to return his subs for this half-term and I had to sit on my hands to stop myself getting out my red pen and correcting the following:

I enclose £21 for 7 weeks of Beaver's up to Easter.

At least there wasn't one in 'weeks', I suppose. But am I the only one who can't understand why apostrophes seem so difficult to use correctly for some?

I feel your pain.

I passed this brass plaque yesterday, in central London:

Cycle's parked here will be Removed

Not the random use of a capital as well. Another bugbear of mine!

I feel your pain. There are times I could weep.

I genuinely do not see what is so difficult about this. In fact, compared to some other parts of the English language, apostrophe use is at least predictable.

Unfortunately these days it's predictably crap!

at united in pain!

It would be rude, yes. If she were a paid member of staff, then I'd say go for it. Sadly, she is a volunteer giving up her own time... Why don't you volunteer to be letter writer

How about 'For Sale - Pansy's'

On a snowdrop walk thingy at the weekend I saw "Please keep Of the snowdrops". It was all I could do not to get the handy pen in my handbag out and scribble...

Re apostrophes - people panic. They see an S, they know that sometimes apostrophes are used where there is an S and just lob one in. And it keeps pedants like us in a permanent state of righteous indignation, which is always good for the soul .

Soupdragon: such is my pain that I have thought of volunteering as the secretary or something but I don't know how to do it without being rude!

I bit my tongue at toddler group this week when a perfectly reasonable and well worded notice ended with "too" rather than "to".

Have you seen the McVities (I think?) crispy snacks called Crinkly's ???

They eventually dropped the apostrophe, though it took them over a year, presumably after opening the millionth letter of scorn and derision from sensible types like us, but they still insist on the y instead of ie. Painful. What amazes me is that these huge corporations spend millions on marketing, branding, logos, product development, market research, identifying buyer demographics, advertising etc, and there must have been at least a dozen missed opportunities to spot this clanger when a bunch of 'creative types' sat around a table looking at someone with a flipchart, a pointy stick, an overhead projector, a mood board and a sample of the packaging. It would be quite funny if it were not so frightening.

It's the same thing at DS's nursery with the notices - "There have been more case's of Chicken Pox reported..", "Could all parent's please...".
I'm just glad he can't read yet!

... and chickenpox is just one word. Tell 'em that, too, when you're complaining suggesting a new notice

Oh, I'm not going to complain, I'm just going to do some stealth corrections with a Sharpie when no one is looking!

We were parked in the garage last week, and a van pulled up with the following emblazoned on the side(set out like this):

"We supply Pub's,
Restaurant's,
Club's,.."

and so on - you get my drift. I had to look away - very upsetting.

We have one near us that erects fence's and post's!

I often wonder about the printing and typesetting people - do you think they enjoy these little jokes at their customers' expense or do they know no better themselves? I realise that the text and layout etc. is initially stipulated by the customer, and the final proof would be given to them to approve and sign off, but surely out of the goodness of their hearts the printers would gently point it out to the poor paying buffoon?

I rant about this kind of thing in the car all the time - my kids think I am really really sad.

Some of the printers I use employ proofreaders, often as a free extra, but the responsibility lies with whoever placed the work to ensure it is correct, pick up queries on proofs and correct them.

The phrase "printer error" is one of my pet peeves actually. If there's an error in text, it's not the poor printer's fault, it's whoever wrote the thing!

I used to work for a legal publisher and we produced a journal called "Public Law". Several issues went out with "Pubic Law" on the internal title page as it wasn't picked up by a spell-checker or the proofreader!

It drives me wild but not nearly as irritating as a sign on an ex-neighbour's door that read:

No door-to-door seller's
No canvasser's
No religious callers

Aaaagh - be consistent: at least put an apostophe on religious callers as well if you're going to do it at all.

I have a problem with apostrophes.

I know when there is a definiate need for them, when a letter is missing, but can't work out the other times. My son's (that right?) name ends in an s and my MIL uses an S completely opposite to what I thought.

In my defence I went to a lot of primary schools and so missed out some work and did other bits twice.

And the amount of places that claim to sell 'dvd's' and 'cd's'. Ditto garages that do 'mot's'.

Grr.

I can see the point behind dvd's and mot's because they are acronyms and the s isn't part of the abbreviation. I suppose, ideally, you should capitalise the abbreviation thus: DVDs.

Nabster: I always use an extra s after an apostrophe on a name such as James so James's mum? Which way do you do it?

Hmm. Not convinced on that, lalalonglegs! I don't think the fact that they're acronyms should have any bearing on the issue.

MIL would have it as James' mum but I agree with your way.

Well technically, they aren't actually acronyms as an acronym is a word formed from initials such as PETA or NASA.

DVD and CD are abbreviations.

I must admit once when I picked up my daughter's report from nursery I was so shocked by the poor spelling and grammer I took it to the manager with my corrections! Some of the comments were "After eating her lunch she done a "betiful" painting"!

I still remember, on our honeymoon 16 years ago, a sign outside an eaterie for "plate lunch's". I mean, it's even difficult to say ...