Yes! We Have No Grammar …

The other day, we were reminded of the 1922 novelty song by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn from the Broadway revue Make It Snappy, “Yes! We Have No Bananas.”

In this case, “Yes! We Have No Grammar” might be more appropriate for this Kroger gas station. Here’s the display we had to see while filling up the tank. Ouch!

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Mom’s win … again

Say what?

We did a little research on apostrophe use in Mother’s Day and Father’s Day messages floating around cyberspace and …

Mom’s win!

By far, there were more mistake’s for Mother’s than there were foul up’s for Father’s … (of course, our apostrophe abuse is intentional here).

We thought you might get a chuckle at some of our findings, so, here you go:

• Happy Mother’s Day to all the lovely Mom’s!
• … wishing all the Mommy’s I know a Happy Mothers Day!! (this one could have just moved the mark to Mothers)
• We have to celebrate our mama’s by the way…
• … can’t wait to have dinner at moms house. (now, this one needs an apostrophe)
• Happy Mothers Day to all those amazing Mom’s out there 🙂
• … happy mother’s day to all d mom’s of d Boston celtics lol! (this one needs some Capitalization help, too)
• Thank You, Yeah Us Mom’s Do Rock.
• Happy Mother’s Day. Here’s to Mom’s everywhere! (incorrect, unless his mother is omnipresent)
• Happy Mother’s DAy to all tha mom’s n soon to b mom’s out there uu deserve it (this one needs some spelling help, too)

Therefore, today’s punctuation concentration is on avoiding that embarassing apostrophe catastrophe …

To start, let’s define this little character:

apostrophe. noun. a mark of punctuation ( ‘ )used to indicate possessive case or omission of one or more letter(s) from a word.

You may see some sources state that the apostrophe is also used for indicating plurals of abbreviations, acronyms and symbols. We heartily disagree with this usage — we feel that this practice is outdated.

We do like Grammar Book’s baker’s dozen of Rules for Apostrophes, so we’ll refer you to their site for the full details and just give you a summary here, with one addition from us:

Our Apostrophe Rule:

0. Do not use an apostrophe to form a plural. This goes for words, symbols, abbreviations, and acronyms. * (This is related to Rules 5. – names, and 11. – CAPS & numbers used as nouns, below, but more encompassing.)

* Here are examples of misuse according to our rule:

Grammar Book’s Apostrophe Rules:

1. Use the apostrophe with contractions.
2. Use the apostrophe to show possession.
3. Use the apostrophe where the noun that should follow is implied.
4. Use the apostrophe to show plural possession.
5. Do not use an apostrophe for the plural of a name. * (We have some people in mind who need to learn this rule!)
6. Use the apostrophe with a singular compound noun, to show possession.
7. Use the apostrophe with a plural compound noun, to show possession.
8. Use the apostrophe and s after the second name only if two people possess the same item.
9. Never use an apostrophe with possessive pronouns: his, hers, its, theirs, ours, yours, whose.
10. The only time an apostrophe is used for it’s is when it is a contraction for it is or it has. (Remember, “its” is a possessive pronoun – no apostrophe.) See photo below.
11. The plurals for capital letters and numbers used as nouns are not formed with apostrophes. *
12. Use the possessive case in front of a gerund (-ing word).
13. If the gerund has a pronoun in front of it, use the possessive form of that pronoun. (Refer to Rule 9. re: pronouns.)

Speaking of rules … we like this … from Trevor Coultart:

Should be its.

Sources: GrammarBook.com, Flickr

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Apostrophe atrocities …

We present, in tribute to our friends over at Apostrophe Abuse, Apostrophe Catastrophes, Apostrophism, and of course Apostrophe Police, the following  …

• From the Viewing Guide on our Time Warner Cable screen … umbrella’s … really?

• Guess we should say that … Stand In’s … are from the … credit’s … in the TV show … The Kennedy’s … ???

So, what is it with this tendency to apostrophize plurals? We don’t get it. Do you?

• Finally, in today’s tribute, we’re still lookin’ for the missin’ apostrophe in this … Surfin … sign.

This is just another example of apostrophailure.

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Dear punctuation mark …

Write a letter to a punctuation mark … win a book!
Visit our friends over at EMDASHES to join in the fun.
We have pen in hand to correspond with the SarcMark ®
Which is your favorite?

1	Apostrophe	‘
2	Brackets	[ ] { }
3	Colon	:
4	Comma	,
5	Dash	—
6	Ellipsis	…
7	Exclamation mark/point	!
8	Full stop/period	.
9	Hyphen	–
10	Parenthesis	( )
11	Question mark	?
12	Quotation marks	“ ”
13	Semicolon	;
14	Slash/stroke/virgule	/
15	Sarcmark

While you’re at it … why not enjoy “the practice or system of using certain conventional marks or characters in writing or printing in order to separate elements and make the meaning clear, as in ending a sentence or separating clauses.”

And, pay a visit to some of our other punctuation pals:

Comma Clout

Apostrophe Abuse

The Blog of Unnecessary Quotation Marks

Apostrophe Catastrophes

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Accepted through misuse?

By popular demand, we are resurrecting this post and adding commentary:

Our original post:

A reader writes questioning the loss of a singular noun with the word “none,” as it now seems to be considered normal usage.

Occasionally you may hear the refreshingly-correct: “None is …”

Motivated Grammar wrote:

Why is “none are” incorrect? I’ve marshalled a series of arguments for why it’s right, and would be interested in hearing why you disagree. In short, it’s been in use since [the year] 888 and “none” can behave as a semantic plural, so there doesn’t seem to be any reason to oppose it.

 And, our reply was:

Good question, thanks. The word “none” originated as a non-apostrophe contraction meaning “not one,” therefore, a singular pronoun. However, as you correctly point out, it has been used as a plural pronoun for ages. Most references now condone the commoner plural usage, so the only reason we have to oppose the plural is that we are, on most occasions, purists (or maybe just grammar snobs?)

For now, we’re sticking to our GrammarGuns … however, we will recommend leniency for anyone cited for using “none are.”

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Mom’s win …

Say what?

We did a little research on apostrophe use in Mother’s Day and Father’s Day messages floating around cyberspace and …

Mom’s win!

By far, there were more mistake’s for Mother’s than there were foul up’s for Father’s … (of course, our apostrophe abuse is intentional here).

We thought you might get a chuckle at some of our findings, so, here you go:

• Happy Mother’s Day to all the lovely Mom’s!
• … wishing all the Mommy’s I know a Happy Mothers Day!! (this one could have just moved the mark to Mothers)
• We have to celebrate our mama’s by the way…
• … can’t wait to have dinner at moms house. (now, this one needs an apostrophe)

Therefore, today’s punctuation concentration is on avoiding that embarassing apostrophe catastrophe … 

To start, let’s define this little character:

apostrophe. noun. a mark of punctuation ( ‘ )used to indicate possessive case or omission of one or more letter(s) from a word.

You may see some sources state that the apostrophe is also used for indicating plurals of abbreviations, acronyms and symbols. We heartily disagree with this usage — we feel that this practice is outdated.

We do like Grammar Book’s baker’s dozen of Rules for Apostrophes, so we’ll refer you to their site for the full details and just give you a summary here, with one addition from us:

Our Apostrophe Rule:

0. Do not use an apostrophe to form a plural. This goes for words, symbols, abbreviations, and acronyms. * (This is related to Rules 5. – names, and 11. – CAPS & numbers used as nouns, below, but more encompassing.)

* Here are examples of misuse according to our rule:

Grammar Book’s Apostrophe Rules:

1. Use the apostrophe with contractions.
2. Use the apostrophe to show possession.
3. Use the apostrophe where the noun that should follow is implied.
4. Use the apostrophe to show plural possession.
5. Do not use an apostrophe for the plural of a name. * (We have some people in mind who need to learn this rule!)
6. Use the apostrophe with a singular compound noun, to show possession.
7. Use the apostrophe with a plural compound noun, to show possession.
8. Use the apostrophe and s after the second name only if two people possess the same item.
9. Never use an apostrophe with possessive pronouns: his, hers, its, theirs, ours, yours, whose.
10. The only time an apostrophe is used for it’s is when it is a contraction for it is or it has. (Remember, “its” is a possessive pronoun – no apostrophe.) See photo below.
11. The plurals for capital letters and numbers used as nouns are not formed with apostrophes. *
12. Use the possessive case in front of a gerund (-ing word).
13. If the gerund has a pronoun in front of it, use the possessive form of that pronoun. (Refer to Rule 9. re: pronouns.)

Speaking of rules … we like this … from Trevor Coultart:

Should be its.

 Sources: GrammarBook.com, Flickr

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