Bravo to the Mayor of Birmingham, England, who recently decreed that apostrophes will be banned from local signs. This follows too many Birmingham City Council debates about the proper and improper application of our most confused punctuation practice: the apostrophe to denote possession. No longer will council members and sign painters debate the need for the flying comma before or after the “s.” Naturally the nation’s language purists are up in arms.
In an article posted on MSNBC a popular British grammarian is cited. In her best-selling book “Eats, Shoots and Leaves,” Lynne Truss recorded her fury at the title of the Hugh Grant-Sandra Bullock comedy “Two Weeks Notice,” insisting it should be “Two Weeks’ Notice.” “Those spineless types who talk about abolishing the apostrophe are missing the point, and the pun is very much intended,” she wrote.
When grammar commentators argue on the basis of the tradition or elegance of some rule or usage, we know it has outlived its usefulness. I don’t hear one complaint that omitting the apostrophe will cause confusion, because we already know that an ” ‘s” sounds just like an “s” when we converse. Never have I been asked when I spoke the word “its” or ” it’s” whether I referred to the one with an apostrophe or the one without. Why? Because the meaning is conveyed by the context. We depend on the meaning of the sentence to settle any ambiguity.
Those who insist on conserving punctuation practices and quaint prohibitions like the split infinitive are usually those who have more or less mastered the rule in question. They realize that if the rule no longer applies, then some arcane knowledge they have mastered will be useless. And the power they felt by applying that rule confidently will be dissipated. In other words, they will have fewer reasons to be smug.
Most European languages have flourished without an apostrophe. The “s” functions very comfortably as plural and possessive. The native speaker of English is disconcerted at first, finding no redundant apostrophes to complicate a foreign language, but soon it becomes a pleasure to read without the tiny obstruction between letters.
I’ll concede one ulterior motive to the extermination of the possessive apostrophe, and that is the burden of circling it in my students’ writing. It is astonishing how many otherwise brilliant writers may be genuinely confused by the distinction between simple plurals and possessives. And this is the final reason why the apostrophe as possessive should be unemployed. Many intelligent people find them extraneous to their education. Rather than argue that point, I have joined the selectively literate masses, who find no significance in a tiny mark that has often been confused with a speck of dust or an imperfection in the paper.
If a speck can be a punctuation mark, then imagine the importance of the merest ink smudge or a ragged margin? I’d rather take a little cosmetic license and ignore them all.
The entire article from MSNBC is posted at
http://neologophilia.pbwiki.com/Literacy-in-the-News
While on the surface it may seem as though the possessive apostrophe is useless, the original purpose of imparting clarity is still being served. It may be true that the context of the sentence is usually sufficient to determine possessiveness; however, in the case of a plural possessive, we would be hard-pressed to determine meaning with any certainty were it not for that “tiny mark that has often been confused with a speck of dust”. Consider, for instance, your sentence: “Naturally the nation’s language purists are up in arms.” Because of the correct placement of the apostrophe, I understand that you are referring to “the language purists of one nation” and I can gather from the context that that nation is Great Britain. Without the punctuation, I might not know whether just one nation’s purists were upset or whether many nations’ purists were up in arms. Furthermore, when you referred to “my students’ writing”, I clearly understood that you have more than one student, which could be important to note because that means you witness the mistakes you mentioned in the writing of more than one student. Therefore, it seems to me that the apostrophe is still needed (placed correctly, though) for distinguishing between mere possessive and plural possessive.
Thanks for your very specific critique of my diatribe about the apostrophe. Naturally a punctuation mark of long-standing authority has some merits, as you point out.
I’ll only say that the issue is how much you are willing to get from the context of the sentence. You, yourself, point out that
“I can gather from the context that that nation is Great Britain. Without the punctuation, I might not know whether just one nation’s purists were upset or whether many nations’ purists were up in arms.”
If you gather that the nation is Great Britain, then you also know that I am referring to one nation, not multiple nations.
“My students’ writing” is more complicated. I admit that there would be an important difference between “my students’ writing” and “my students writing,” because I could be talking about the mere fact that my students were writing, when I say “my students writing.” So I would have to shape those sentences so that the context revealed the true meaning.
Writing is always ambiguous, and our success as writers is trying to minimize the ambiguity. I suppose I am arguing that we can minimize ambiguity without depending on the possessive apostrophe.
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