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?

Estate Agents are the worst offenders IME.

I saw reference in an some blurb yesterday for 'dorma' windows (they meant dormer).

It also had this strange meaningless construct masquerading as a sentence: 'Whilst being predominantly laid to lawn with flower and shrub beds and side gated access.'

...saw reference in some blurb... that should read.

There is a brasserie near where I live called The Gallary, printed in big letters on the shopfront, all the menus etc. It drives me wild...is it an obscure alternative spelling? Or just a word that I don't know about?

I've seen Lady's Hair Salon...

I've seen a pattiserie. I know it's French but really, if you want to be pretentious you should at least check the spelling....

They changed the sign eventually. I like to think that enough cake-buying pedants pointed their error out to them.

Nabster - both James' mum and James's mum are recognised as correct.

Living abroad you get to see so many lovely examples of English that spelling and punctuation pale into insignificance. There is a restaurant near here that offers such delights as 'entrail soup' (sounds delicious!), 'ripped fruit of the season' and my personal favourite 'stuffed vine lives'...

Yes, RealityIs, I'm with you. Just read ' ...and the Technology curriculum is comprised of...' written by a teacher for other teachers and published in a glossy journal.

I had a ( verbal) fight with our school secretary about 'comprised of'. She assured me it was correct and got quite shirty when I asked her to change it.

Just back from a pub lunch where they had "panini's" on the menu.
I think that falls into a sub-category of apostrophe use - if it ends in a vowel, add one before the "s", even if you don't need an "s" as is the case with panini.

I don't think that's technically correct, because usually you would add an 'e', like chillies, tomatoes, etc. But certain words which are relatively new to English language usage confuse people, (bizarrely we add an 'e' to potato and chilli but not to banana!!!!) People are often unsure of the plural form of many foreign words anyway, so the apostrophe is generally tolerated or overlooked. There are a few plural words which just look or sound odd/clumsy without an apostrophe so people often put them in against their better judgement. For instance paninis could be pronounced paniniss. Mitigating circumstance m'Lud, but still guilty as charged!

Panini is already a plural (sing: panino)so no s needed and certainly no apostrophe.

There used to be a baker's shop near here..the proprietor's name was "Francis"..

Some intelligent signwriter painted it as "Franci's"

Oh, my MIL also bought me a tea towel with different coffee types printed all over it..including "Expresso"!

At least it wasn't "Expresso's", I suppose!

I trust you didn't accept it!

I did, shame on me! [blush} and I said it was lovely too!

My surname is Humphreys. Dd's new nursery sent me a welcome letter addressed to Mrs Humphrey's... I nearly changed my mind about sending her there!

Don't get me started on estate agents with their frontages and aspects.

lalalonglegs - yes, good one about panini, similarly biscotti, I have often seen ads for 'Biscotti's' (sic) (aaarghhh)

And on your point about James'/ James's - our church signwriter once kindly donated a sign which read St Jame's Church. Needless to say, we had to look that particular gifthorse in the mouth...

I'm grateful for the anonymity of the internet because I can now confess that I got so prementrual irrational with Sainsburys that I demanded to see the manager and asked him to explain the firm's literacy problems

I am truly sorry for that poor man. I hauled him around aisle after aisle pointing out persistent apostrophe abuse. He gave me a £10 voucher to go away.

quattro! but well done.
i have seen some of the offical printed banners for sainsbo's incorrect. i can forgive mistakes on handwritten stuff, specially in a context where literacy is not a key skill required for the job (e.g dd's key worker was brilliant at keeping her happy at nursery, not so good with spellings), but think that PRINTED things should be correct.

mind you, i got a shirt printed up for my dad & when i went to pick it up, it had the wrong kind of 'there' on it, even though i got it right on the order!! grrr. they corrected t.

anyone seen the fish (as in pet) shop near the south circular in london called Tropicals and Marine's ? If you can't make your mind up, why not try one of each...

I applaud Quattrocento. If all pedantic customers complained about grammar standards and generally caused a disruption, the retailers would take note. It's the gradual acceptance of the decline in literacy which depresses me.
For example, at least 60% of job applications I used to receive contained appalling, basic errors. Yet these candidates were not discounted. I fear the reason was that had they been, there would have been no-one left to employ.

I once went on a team-building weekend and we all were given t-shirts with "there" instead of "they're". I rather broke the spirit of camaraderie by refusing to wear mine...

A crown for Quattrocentro - queen (or elected state alternative) of pedant's corner. We unite behind you.