Although the Apostrophe Protection Society was founded “with the specific aim of preserving the correct use of this currently much abused punctuation mark in all forms of text written in the English language,” its Web site consists chiefly of a running list of apostrophic abominations: “Taxi’s Only”; “Don’t Judge a Book by It’s Movie”; “Ladie’s,” “Vice-Chancellors Lodge Private Grounds”; “Toilette’s Are for Customer’s Use.” The more one looks at bad apostrophes, the more familiar they grow and the more acceptable they seem. The chairman of the APS is a retired “subeditor,” which is what they call a copy editor in England. His work consisted largely of “adding, deleting or moving apostrophes,” and even once he retired he couldn’t stop. Great sport is made of what Lynne Truss calls the grocer’s apostrophe, a sort of poor relation of the Oxford comma. I could go across the street to the grocery store and be almost certain of seeing a sign—printed, not hand-lettered—that said “Banana’s” or “Papaya’s.” The chief problem is that, in the interests of economy, the language has pressed into service the letter s for two different purposes: to form the plural and, in combination with the apostrophe, to make a noun into a possessive adjective. Sometimes these functions overlap or get confused, and someone uses the apostrophe to form the plural. Is that ground for despair? The APS states on its site, “We are aware of the way the English language is evolving during use, and do not intend any direct criticism of those who have made mistakes, but are just reminding all writers of English text, whether on notices or in documents of any type, of the correct usage of the apostrophe should you wish to put right any mistakes you may have inadvertently made.”
I don’t know if Eleanor Gould was invited to join the APS, but she would have approved of it. Lu Burke, on the other hand, would have thought that a retired copy editor should have better things to do than continue to chase down errant bits of punctuation. When she retired, the folks in Heritage Village, up in Connecticut, asked whether she was interested in proofreading their newsletter. She turned them down. Apostrophes and whatnot could worry about themselves.
Why should a grocer have to master apostrophes, anyway? Things that are correct disappear, in a good way, while things that are incorrect can sometimes amuse. In Times Square I saw a sign that said “STREET CLOSEURE,” a touch of French that gives our American thoroughfares some class. Maybe the typo that appeared in the name Jesus on a commemorative gold coin issued by the Vatican—“LESUS”—was Jesus’ way of saying, “Don’t waste God’s money on commemorative gold coins.” The lunch specials chalked on a blackboard outside a restaurant in the East Village included a “salomon snad.” I would never order a salmon sandwich—doesn’t sound good; obviously, it’s not sushi-grade salmon if they’re making patties out of it—but I found the salomon snad quite beguiling.
Think of apostrophes as jewelry—maybe that’s what would make us handle them properly. The apostrophe is possessive: it will hang in.
Chapter 9
F*CK THIS SH*T
HAS THE CASUAL USE OF profanity in English reached a high tide? That’s a rhetorical question, but I’m going to answer it anyway: Fuck yeah.
In some ways, it’s a beautiful thing. Jon Stewart, on The Daily Show, is so gleeful in his use of every raunchy variation on the seven words George Carlin said you couldn’t say on TV or radio (“fuck,” “piss,” “shit,” “cunt,” “motherfucker,” “cocksucker,” and “tits”) that he seems set jubilantly free. Of course, censorship has come a long way, too. The bleep master leaves just enough snippet of syllable to add mirth to such colorful expressions as “you dairy-aisle motherfbleepking bleep.” In the English-speaking world, uncensored profanity probably reaches its apogee on the British series The Thick of It, written by Armando Ianucci (with “swearing consultant” Ian Martin), which follows a ruthless political operative who cannot put two syllables together without wedging a curse in between. “E-fucking-nough,” he says. “Fuckety-bye.” In puritanical America, by contrast, prime-time shows are accessorized with asterisks, dashes, and euphemisms: S*** My Father Says, Don’t Trust the B——in Apartment 23, It’s Effin’ Science. I like to think that the person who blew it all open was Richard Nixon, back in the seventies, with his [expletives deleted] on the Watergate tapes—insomuch as it has been blown open. (Did anyone ever print the president’s actual words?) The New York Times persists in stifling the “common barnyard epithet,” even when a book titled On Bullshit—a work of philosophy by a scholar at Yale—appeared on its best-seller list, in 2005. There is a blog devoted to the Times’s runarounds (fit-to-print) and a perennial argument between reporters and editors over what should be quoted directly and what should be waltzed around, and why. Whose delicate sensibilities are we catering to? Certainly not mine—not anymore.