GrammarBlog: Apostrophe Abuse in Signage - Part 4 - This is our old site. Find us at GrammarBlog.co.uk

Friday 20 July 2007

Apostrophe Abuse in Signage - Part 4

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Bridgeton - European City of Apostrophe Abuse 2006, originally uploaded by dseang.

There are good intentions here, I almost feel for the proprietor. I can imagine her furrowed brow as she checks what she has written:

Marion's

Possessive singular - correct.

Ladie's

Possessive plural. She's thinking, "I know that's how you spell ladies but I've got to stick an apostrophe somewhere".

Children

She's losing interest in the possessive now, she knows something is wrong with the last one and is giving this one a wide birth.

Gents

Possessive plural, abbreviated form. She's given up here. I can almost imagine her trying out all the variants of apostrophes, plurals and full-stops to indicate abbreviation.

~~Gent's.~~ ~~Gentleman's~~ ~~Gents.'~~ Oh sod it!

Labels: apostrophe abuse, photos, punctuation, signage

posted by Gez at 6:50 pm

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3 Comments:

Tom said...: Given that Marion clearly has trouble with apostrophes, the letter "s" and (more generally) written English, perhaps she considered "children" to be the possessive form of "childs".; 21 July 2007 at 16:12
Gez said...: Maybe she sells children, I hadn't thought of that.; 30 July 2007 at 02:25
Anonymous said...: "a wide birth"?????!!
LOL, you have got to be kidding me!; 8 July 2008 at 20:38