Apostrophes

“Skype — social networking at it’s best”

Apostrophes, Common English Blunders, Contractions, Possessives, Pronouns

I got this in an email message from Skype a couple of days ago.

Problem:
A contraction-forming apostrophe appears where it should not.

Explanation:
The word “it’s” is a contraction of “it is”; the apostrophe signifies the dropping of a letter (the “i” in “is”).

The required word is “its” (not “it’s”) because “its” is the possessive form of “it” (which refers to “Skype”).

Confusing “it’s” and “its” is a common English blunder.

A simple way to remember that “its” is the possessive form of “it” — a third-person pronoun — is to recognize that “his” is the possessive form of “he” — another third-person pronoun — and that neither “his” nor “its” has a possessive apostrophe.

Solution:
“Skype — social networking at its best”

“Im out of Save/pay-by-mail envelopes.”

Apostrophes, Capitalization, Common English Blunders, Contractions, Devolution toward Simpler

I saw this on the back of a bank-by-mail envelope from my credit union.

Problems:
An apostrophe is missing from the contraction, and the verb used as an adjective should not be capitalized.

Explanation:
Whoever wrote what is printed on the back of the envelope was trying to use the contracted, everyday-speech form of “I am”.

Unfortunately, the contraction “Im” lacks the required apostrophe.

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

It’s simpler to write “Im” than to write “I’m” (two keystrokes vs. three keystrokes).

I also believe that the increasingly common practice of dropping required apostrophes has been influenced by people’s experience with text messaging.

  • Given the typical limit of 160 characters in a text message, every character is precious, so dropping required apostrophes seems to many like a reasonable price to pay.
  • Also, text messaging on most cellular telephones, which don’t have full QWERTY keyboards, is tedious, so dropping required apostrophes lets users of the simpler phones avoid this tedium.

The other problem is that “Save” — a verb used as an adjective to modify “envelopes” — is capitalized when it should not be.

Unnecessary capitalization has become another common English blunder.

I see this unnecessary capitalization more with nouns than with adjectives.

Maybe American English is becoming more like German, or maybe American English speakers are losing their confidence in how to capitalize and therefore randomly capitalize words that don’t require it.

Solution:
“I’m out of save/pay-by-mail envelopes.”

“INVESTIGATIVE SERVICES UNIT & APPEAL’S”

Apostrophes, Common English Blunders, Nouns, Possessives

I saw this yesterday on a San Quentin State Prison sign shown during an MSNBC television program.

Problem:
A possessive apostrophe appears where it should not.

Explanation:
“APPEAL’S” of what?

The apostrophe in “APPEAL’S” should not be there.

The sign maker was trying to refer to the plural of the noun “APPEAL”.

He or she instead made the sign maker’s common blunder of inserting a possessive apostrophe when pluralizing a noun.

Maybe sign makers just love to create apostrophes?

Solution:
“INVESTIGATIVE SERVICES UNIT & APPEALS”