Addressing the Apostrophe

Re “Some People Can Get Very Possessive About Apostrophe’s,” Commentary, Dec. 16: For years I have railed and groused about this problem of using apostrophes to indicate plural nouns, but it has only grown worse. Is it merely a symptom of our ailing schools or an apathetic populace blindly following the many brazenly published errors? I suspect the root of the problem is a little of both.

The endless parade of apostrophe abuse in the media, advertisements and signage breeds uncertainty in a public primed for gullibility by ignorance of grammar. I won’t attack our teachers, who do as much as they can with not enough, but those of us in the business of publishing in any form have a responsibility to be sure that what we publish is grammatically correct. Making pretty layouts is only part of the job. Ignorant mistakes are embarrassing to our clients, to the designer, to their colleagues and to anyone doing business with them.

Cullen Davis

Graphic Artist

Sherman Oaks

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I sympathize with Arianna Huffington’s discomfort at the misuse of the apostrophe. Last week I spent five days working on the film “Seabiscuit” at Santa Anita. Each cold, dark morning when I arrived I was greeted by several signs bearing arrows. One directed me to the “Extra’s Parking” area and another to the “Extra’s Holding” area. It appears that the sign maker thought that the horses in the cinematic races would be cheered on by a crowd of one.

Part of the reason why we have widespread misuse of punctuation marks is that people who should know better don’t set a very good example. Some years ago when an NFL football game ran late, CBS ran an announcement at the bottom of the screen telling viewers that “60 Minutes” would be seen “in it’s entirety” on the East Coast after the game. I probably wouldn’t remember this incident were it not for the fact that CBS ran that same felonious punctuation mark at least three more times that season.

While she’s at it, I think Huffington should take on the copywriters who misuse the word “their” in advertising, as in “ABC Jewelry is having their annual end-of-year clearance.” She could also expose misplaced quotation marks. But let’s not even discuss “hopefully.” As Edwin Newman observed two decades ago, “We’ve lost the battle on ‘hopefully.’ ”

David Riley

Laguna Woods

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The two best things about Huffington’s commentary: The Times purposely put an apostrophe in the headline (“Apostrophe’s”); and I can finally give myself a title. Ever since the Earth was cooling, when I graduated from USC, I have been a “grammar scold,” much to the chagrin of some of my family and friends.

One of the apostrophe gaffes that bugs me the most is when people take a four-word sentence like “You are a moron” and condense it to three words by incorrectly writing “Your a moron” instead of “You’re a moron.”

Robert L. West

Calabasas

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I would like to add a postscript to Huffington’s words concerning the use of the apostrophe. Years ago I wondered what there was about the Oakland “A’s” that required an apostrophe. I figured I was missing some hidden meaning, because it just glares at us on those baseball caps. Along those lines, how about references to the “1930’s” or “1950’s,” etc.?

Since Huffington opened the gate on the misuse of the English language, how many journalists and reporters do we hear within an hour’s presentation who don’t know when to use “there is” and “there are”? Finally, to keep this short, where on Earth did “most importantly” come from?

Pat Ostrye

Monrovia

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Sorry, Arianna. I have a brickbat for you. According to the Chicago Manual of Style, 12th edition, 6.5: “Abbreviations with ... capital letters that would be confusing if s alone were added form the plural with an apostrophe and an s: M.A.’s and Ph.D.’s.” Thus, G.I.’s is the correct way to form the plural, and “G.I.’s are recovering” is also correct.

Jackie Naiditch

Altadena

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I had to nod in complete agreement with Huffington’s rant about the misuse (or lack of use) of apostrophes. As an English professor, I get extremely frustrated at the same problems in my students’ papers.

I don’t know whether the misuse of apostrophes with plurals or the lack of apostrophes with possessives is more irritating, but either way, such errors distract me from the content of the paper and give me a less-than-stellar impression of the writer. As I tell my students, “Apostrophes are our friends.”

Atara Stein

Associate Professor

Cal State Fullerton