S'top abu's'ing apo's'trophe's. and other stuff

This is driving me nuts.


Improper grammar I can endure. Abnormal use of words that have nothing to do with what is being talked about, ok fine.


But apostrophes are only to be used for the conjugation of shortened words.

I've seen horrible examples of apostrophe abuse.

Pluralization DOES not require an apostrophe.
Random words that end with an "s" do not always require an apostrophe

I've even seen it done by people who are supposedly educated.

Anyways comment away,
and yes I know there are many other horrible abuses, like people saying "whelp". Which originated from online chat talk of people saying well :p. That is the word well with a smiley with a tongue sticking out indicating " whatever I don't know "

The Internet is a scary place when even leetspeek is incorrect

I've seen another thread in this talking about figures of speech not being used properly
but they didint talk about apostrophes and i saw some abuse in there


Anyways feel free to attack my grammar and word choice I amtyping on a smart phone (iPhone) which has a really annoying autocorrect that I think I'm going to disable soon

Just yesterday, I noticed a roadside advertisement at a car dealership:

Save 1000's

Need i say more?

I have an iPhone. I'm sure everyone who has one will appreciate this site: damnyouautocorrect.com...

This is what bothers you?I am sad for you''''''''''.

Id be careful if I were you... If youre going to start ranting on apostrophes...the next thing youll want to get rid of is the ever popular ellipses...

What kind of world...would we be in...if we couldnt have...ellipses?

Wouldnt you know it?...A double post's...

I know, it's the rant section, and, stuff, but, I, only came.....co's I feelio rant---ish my self---ish.

does thi's drive you mad?¿
Orr thi's?
Or maybe thi's and th!s¿

Haha...i'm only jo-king around with you

I'll admit it. I'm not the best with grammar and punctuation. I've always thought forums were a teachers nightmare. But I figure as long as I can understand what a person is saying, or in this case writing. I don't give them a hard time about what I'm not so great at myself.

Honestly, I look at language as a living and evolving thing that changes with the changes in communication. For example I despise txtspk with a passion. Anything more advanced than ROFLMAO is just lost upon me and I have to fight to translate it.

Having said that, my 15 year old nephew could probably write the equivalent of a 20 page dissertation in 2 or 3 pages and without using a single vowel. This could be considered an evolution of the language. To me it would be maddening to try to read it but to his peers... When it's all said and done, after all, it is merely a means of getting a message across. Function can override form.

The thing about language rants is this: Not all posters are native English speakers. So, you can expect grammatical errors on forum postings. It's as simple as that. (It's a contraction of It is, and I can use an apostrophe there).

Its and It's is probably one of the major offenses. This is largely because it doesn't follow the normal rule for possession. Example: A business wants to control its bottom line. But, you wouldn't say a business wants to control it's bottom line. It's just because this possessive happens to also be a contraction, so different rules apply.

For other possessives, you add the apostrophe s. Mike's suit is neatly pressed. (example).
If it ends in s, you add an apostrophe without the s (typically). Chris' suit is neatly pressed.

If a contraction, use an apostrophe.
You'll
We'd, We'll
They'd, They'll
You've, You're
etc., etc.

But, the human brain is remarkable, and can make sense out of nonsense, such as the following:

Eevn tuoghh tihs snentcee is cteopmley out of suqenece I wlil bet you can siltl raed it.

Originally posted by Gazrok
It's just because this possessive happens to also be a contraction, so different rules apply.

For other possessives, you add the apostrophe s. Mike's suit is neatly pressed. (example).
If it ends in s, you add an apostrophe without the s (typically). Chris' suit is neatly pressed.

Are you talking about an exorcist here? or the possessivee??

and who are Chris and Mike?..........Arrrgghhhh...I just try and use the spell check thingie and go from there. It still won't let me use honour and the like though without a red squiggly under it and I know I am spelling that correctly.

Bah, your post gives me a headache trying to figure it all out...........

Then there is also abbreviations:
gov't (government)
'phone (telephone)
'bout (about)
'twas (it was)

And my personal favorite, dropping the g at the end of a word, just to convey my southern slang....i.e. smokin', runnin', fixin'.....

reply to post by Gazrok


Technically Chris's suit. Chris is not plural, he is singular, and the singular possessive is formed by adding an apostrophe and an s, regardless of whether the singular word ends in s. As such, "Chris' suit" is incorrect. Exceptions, for whatever stupid reasons, are sometimes permitted for ancient historical figures (such as Moses), of which Chris is not one. Hope that helps.

Also, to the OP, apostrophes can be used to pluralize single letters. This is to help prevent confusion between words like "As" and "Is" and pluralizations of vowels, such as "A's" and "I's." If this exception was not granted, consider the odd appearance of a sentence such as "As are better than Bs." The exception does not extend to acronyms, which may be pluralized by simply adding s, and possession is still indicated by apostrophe and s. "I bought two new CDs" is correct, but "I bought two new CD's" is incorrect. "The CD's shape is circular" is correct, but "The CDs shape is circular" is incorrect.

reply to post by Hefficide


It could just as easily be considered a devolution of the language. That the brain can often properly unpack a garbled sentence does not mean that the sentence structure or spelling should be preserved. Languages are indeed fluid but the changes in them over time are not necessarily for the better.

Also, though this doesn't undermine either of our points, it's worth noting that textspeak is borne out of a necessity to squash the content to a size that fits the limits of an application/interface. For good or ill, the most commonly used technologies by young people are what is driving the prevalence of textspeak, not any desire by the users to actually talk that way. A ramification of this is that if a person uses that sort of technology as a primary means of communicating with other humans, the habits picked up will filter into spoken use. I'm not comfortable with the notion that character limits on interfaces are altering language patterns, but that's just me.