Yeah, sadly (for some), that’s me.

It has gotten to the point that in an on-line community I frequent, I have been “awarded” this by-line in my profile. I like to believe it was given to me as a gesture of endearment, rather than of annoyance (well yeah, I like to live in a fantasy world)… They have even gone to the lengths of editing some of my posts in the forums to add unauthorised apostrophes. Oh the humanity!!

Now I’m not one of those anally retentive bitches that corrects EVERY apostrophe violation I see, but hell, how hard IS it?

It’s simple really.

Apostrophe use for dummies

  1. Use an apostrophe if you are indicating ownership: “Damien’s education or classroom concentration must have been poor if he misuses apostrophes.”
  2. Use an apostrophe if you are abbreviating a word: ” I can’t understand why you won’t use apostrophes correctly”

Of course, there are exceptions to the rule in case of the word “its” when indicating ownership. You only use the apostrophe as it’s if you are shortening the term “it is”.

Do NOT, repeat NOT use an apostrophe when you’re trying to indicate “more than one” of something: “Use your apostrophes correctly dumb-arse.” NOT “Use your apostrophe’s correctly dumb-arse.”

Advanced apostrophe use (for those with an IQ over 70…)

Oh, if you think you can cope, here’s (yes, here is) what you do when you are indicating ownership for someone or something that already ends in an “S”: “Lewis’ use of the apostrophe is one hundred percent correct!”

Oh, and one other thing totally unrelated to the apostrophe, but while I’m (yes, I am) at it, here it is:

to: indicates a direction: “going to town”, “coast to coast”, “he goes to her”

too: indicates “as well” or “in excess of”: “I’m coming too” or “There are too many apostrophe violations in this world!”

Seriously, you do damage to how you are perceived intellectually by others when they read stuff where this simple bit of grammar is poor. Do yourself a favour and make the effort people!

Can you imagine just HOW many times I checked this post for grammatical correctness? I still reckon SOMEONE is going to point out a mistake! - Serve me right :doh_tb:

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