An Apostrophe Lesson

There’s been more than one time that I’ve driven past a business that doesn’t know how to use the apostrophe. For instance, many times I’ve seen the sign out in front of The Window Pros. Presumably, the business name is short for The Window Professionals. Strangely enough, their sign actually reads The Window Pro’s. Perhaps the felt they were creating a contraction our of the word Professionals and so replaced the missing letters with an apostrophe.

While I’m perhaps running the risk of simply regurgitating Les’ blog, his guest writer Slick posted a link to Bob the Angry Flower‘s Quick Guide to the Apostrophe, You Idiots. While the strip in general isn’t really to my taste, I did enjoy that piece. Thanks for the link, Slick (and Les). If you like that piece, you may be interested in the full-color poster, or you can get it on a t-shirt (or mousepad) in black and white or in color.

If Bob’s humor is a little to rough around the edges for you, perhaps you’d prefer something a little different. To that end, I bring you Arianna Huffington’s take on the very same issue. You may or may not agree with Arianna – I don’t generally – but on this one she nailed it.

And if you prefer a more proper education on the use of the apostrophe, here is a piece from Purdue. One of the surprising bits from this page is that the apostrophe is actually used to indicate the plural form of lowercase letters. For instance, Mind your p’s and q’s. I did not know that. It is probably worth mentioning that this convention is not necessary with capital letters or numbers, as in You have quite a few CDs and I love the 1980s.