I've seen the worst misuse of an apostophe ever...

[SoupDragon]

On a war memorial in Croydon, carved in black granite with the letters highlighted with white, they have had to amend the incorrect use of IT'S to ITS.

Did someone not check the text before it was carved??

And I apparently can't spell apostrophe.

[snort]

That's OK Soup, it's clearly a typo. Though I love it when people try to blame appalling spelling on typos. We pedants can always tell the difference. The worst one I saw on here was someone asking if they should contact their local cancel. When the mistake was pointed out to them (not by me, I might add - far too polite) the OP said her finger slipped! What, three times in one word?

On the M25 yesterday I passed an artic with a huge sign on the side saying "The Caterer's - providing catering services for 25 years."

Firstly - the caterer's what?

Secondly - why not "year's"?

And thirdly - no-one in the company has noticed this linguistic molestation for a quarter of a century!

Gah!

Or even "service's", I suppose.

Is it just a guessing thing, do you think?

You lot do make me smile

I like to think that people who weren't paying attention in the (at the least) 11 YEARS they spent at school are somehow identified - perhaps by spotting a look of panic when shown a book - and given a magic invisible apostrophe shotgun, which they then get to use for the rest of their lives.

I found a shocker last night on a specialist reading intervention programme website that i was directed to by another MNer.

And? Is it a treasure hunt? What's the first clue?

Not to do with apostrophe's (he he) as such, but years ago my dad and I were driving round the North Circular and a man was painstakingly finishing a sign above a shop that sold swimming pools - he was hanging individual little metallic squares to make up each letter so that they caught the light and shimmered sugesting moving water - he had put SWIMMINIG POOLS!

Also saw sign in local sandwich shop advertising Sasage Sandwiche £1 the other day.

Also saw sign in local sandwich shop advertising Sasage Sandwiche £1 the other day.

Guffaw at pool sign!!

I was browsing school websites the other night. On one, there's a letter from the head to prospective parents saying that he is seeking to recruit to his school pupils who are prepared to commit to academic excellence, with parents who are ambitious for their children. Unfortunately the effect was rather diluted by: "This year the school achieved it's best ever exam results at KS 3 and 4."

I've had something similar from a school I worked in.I sent it back with offending section circled in red.

I can beat you there is a shop I pass on the way to work called Babie's Need's

I send out letters for the PTA. I am petrified of making an accidental grammatical mistake.

I'm liking swimminig pools Did you stop and tell him??

In a similar vein to cancel, search for stalls on Ebay. It brings up a surprising number of stools.

I am still laughing at cancel

Yes, it's a grocer's apostrophe so doesn't really count as they're expected anyway, but I still don't think you can beat a sign I saw giving the price of Asparagu's

Ànd what is it about 'panini's'? I don't think I've ever seen it written without the apostrophe. Maybe the mistake just sticks in people's minds. Or maybe something more sophisticated to do with the Italian singular/plural... ? Can any Italian speakers enlighten me?

One panino, two or more panini. That's it... anything else is deeply wrong!

To be fair on the sign-writers, it's a bit tricky using foreign plurals in English. But an apostrophe? No!

My other pet hate is CD's. But that's so common I think it's become correct through usage.

Ebay is choc-full of 'dinning' tables as well. Un-bloody-believable.

The other one that winds me up even though I can see where they have got it from is barbeque. I know I know, I need to get a life!