Apostrophes

“Childrens Protective Service”

Adjectives, Apostrophes, Devolution toward Simpler, Misspellings, Possessives

I saw this yesterday in an email message.

Problem:
An apostrophe is missing.

Explanations:
The email message was talking about social-work efforts, and “Childrens Protective Service” — with “Childrens” spelled C-H-I-L-D-R-E-N — was the title of one of the sections in the message.

I believe that the absence of a required possessive apostrophe in “Childrens” can be attributable to:

  • A typographical error;
  • Ignorance about possessive apostrophes.

Given how often I see the apostrophe-free “Mens” and “Womens” in department stores, I doubt that “A typographical error” applies to this situation.

That leaves us with “Ignorance about possessive apostrophes”.

I believe that this ignorance is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis.

It is simpler to write possessive words without apostrophes than to write them with apostrophes.

Solution:
“Children’s Protective Service”

“Do Kennedy’s have to work …”

Apostrophes, Plurals

I saw this yesterday on Fox News Channel.

Problem:
The apostrophe does not belong.

Explanation:
The news-related discussion on Fox News Channel (FNC) was about Caroline Kennedy’s public-relations campaign to get selected by New York’s governor to be the replacement for Senator Hillary Clinton, who had been nominated by President-Elect Barack Obama to be his Secretary of State.

FNC displayed a banner at the bottom of the TV screen during the discussion.

The banner asked “DO KENNEDY’S HAVE TO WORK TWICE AS HARD?” because the discussion focused on whether a member of the Kennedy family has to work harder to prove himself or herself to the public so as to avoid the appearance of a sense of entitlement from the legacy of President John F. Kennedy.

Pluralizing a proper noun that ends in “y” requires simply that an “s” be added to the end.

In other words, a name such as “Kennedy” should not be changed to “Kennedies” — with an I-E-S –and should not be changed to “Kennedy’s” — with an APOSTROPHE-S — when pluralizing it.

I suspect that a spelling checker encouraged the TV banner writer to make the mistake of pluralizing “Kennedy” by adding an apostrophe followed by an “s” because a spelling checker will recognize this form as correct. Unfortunately, this form is correct for the possessive, singular form of “Kennedy” and not for the plural form of “Kennedy”.

Solution:
“Do Kennedys have to work …”

“Open Til’ Midnight”

Apostrophes, Contractions

I saw this on a van yesterday morning.

Problem:
The apostrophe was in the wrong place, if the “Til'” — spelled T-I-L-APOSTROPHE — was meant to be a contraction for “Until”.

Explanation:
“Excelsior Learning Academy” appeared at the top of the sign on the van.

“Open Til’ Midnight” — with the apostrophe appearing after T-I-L — appeared immediately beneath the academy’s name on the sign.

Cross-referencing the telephone number, the multiply-named company actually seems to be a child-care center.

Discovering that Excelsior Learning Academy was essentially a child-care center answered my first question when I saw the sign: “Why would a ‘learning academy’ stay open that late?”

Perhaps this also explained the misplacement of the apostrophe for the omitted portion of the preposition “Until” when this so-called “learning academy” ordered a sign with a contraction for “Until”.

One might argue that Excelsior was creating a contraction of the preposition “Till” — spelled T-I-L-L — by dropping the final “l” and replacing it with an apostrophe, but I would counter-argue (1) that Excelsior and its sign maker probably were not that smart and (2) that it is a waste of an apostrophe to use it as a substitute for the similarly slim letter “l”.

Solution:
“Open ‘Til Midnight” or “Open Until Midnight”