# Lets jus't ban fucking apostrophe's.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [August 11, 2003, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443 "2003-08-11T18:20:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443/41 "2003-08-12T01:33:33Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Podkayne \*
> \*\*A gas station in our town now proudly bears a spanking new sign:
>
> “BOBS FUEL AND SERVICE”
>
> Given all the _extra_ apostrophes running around, one would think that BOB could borrow one.\*\*
Maybe Bob is from the UK, where posessive business names, far more often than not, don’t use an apostrophe.
Not really related to grammar, but increasingly a peeve on business signs - telephone numbers displayed prominently, particularly on signs in inner city neighborhoods. What – someone driving by is going to write down the phone number of E-Z Hand Car Wash or Liberty Check Cashing as they drive by? Besides, if they did take the time to write them down, and they did call, what would the conversation be like?
“E-Z Hard Car Wash … what you want?”
“Uhhh … do you wash cars?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
---
### Author:  [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443/42 "2003-08-12T01:40:52Z")
I forgot to mention the banner I saw displayed at a local florist a few days ago.
**SPECIAL BOKAY’S AVAILABLE**
Only thing that would make the sign perfectly wrong would be some random quotes around one word.
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### Author:  [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443/43 "2003-08-12T01:55:03Z")
How about this one, seen at my school, on the door to a suite of rooms for kids who are learning disabled or challenged:
RESOURCE ROOM’S
Oh the irony.
But the best typo I ever saw was on this guy’s house, on a piece of corkboard:
DEERS CUT UP AND RAPED
He meant to write DEER CUT UP AND WRAPPED, or so I was told. Though perhaps that’s not a safe assumption…
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### Author:  [@FisherQueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FisherQueen)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443/44 "2003-08-12T02:39:48Z")
I see extra apostrophes everywhere. Do you know why this makes me so angry? Because correct apostrophe use is NOT THAT FREAKING DIFFICULT. Plural = no apostrophe, possessive = apostrophe. You don’t need a college degree for that. You don’t even need a high school diploma. You learned it in English every year starting in third grade, for Pete’s sake! It just ISN’T THAT HARD!
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### Author:  [@Orange\_Skinner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orange_Skinner)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443/45 "2003-08-12T02:59:51Z")
I hear you…once, last year, the Cheerleading squad put up this sign for a pep rally. I added the missing apostrophe in with my lipstick.
The other day, my family and I went to the flea market. They have this little strip with fair food…french fries, hot dogs, lemonade, stuff like that.
There was this gyro stand, which, in four words, had managed two different apostrophe mistakes:
**Rogers Original Greek Gyro’s**.
Gah!
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### Author:  [@LindyHopper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LindyHopper)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443/46 "2003-08-12T03:18:51Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by drewbert \*
> \*\*For years, as I went back and forth from college to home, I’d pass by a store with big, blue letters on the side: “FRANK’S GUN AND POWN”.
>
> Actually, I don’t think I ever noticed if the apostrophe was there or not. I was always too appalled at the misspelling. Because it’s bad enough that they managed to purchase and install big letters on the side of their building without anyone noticing a problem. But what’s worse is that the owner apparently couldn’t even spell the name of the business that he’s in!\*\*
About a block from my house, there’s a business establishment with, not a home-made sign, but a _professionally-made_ sign that proclaims said establishment to be a:
Launder Mat
There just aren’t enough :rolleyes:s (note the lack of apostrophes) in the world to express how I feel about this. Sheesh.
**Orange Skinner** : What did the cheerleaders’ sign say, anyway?
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### Author:  [@BadBaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BadBaby)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443/47 "2003-08-12T03:52:26Z")
A while back I was killing time, wandering around a department store and found myself in the section selling curtains and such. What did the sign read? “Home Furnishing’s” with extra apostrophe and quotes. I had to leave before my head exploded.
There is hope for the future however, though perhaps not with apostrophes. At my highschool I was very proud to notice that last year’s “Can Food Drive” posters (provided by the local Red Cross, not our ASB) had all been corrected. Of course most of the kids had added question marks. S’more funny that way.
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### Author:  [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443/48 "2003-08-12T04:05:00Z")
I have gotten so bad when I see them that I actually shriek when uses one where she shouldn’t. I can understand it at a construction site (for employee’s only) or at a rural dump (tresspassor’s will be prosecuted…), but … come on. There _got_ to be a standard here!
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### Author:  [@ElwoodCuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElwoodCuse)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443/49 "2003-08-12T04:19:08Z")
The other day online I saw several people claiming that it’s actually perfectly acceptable to use apostrophes to indicate the plural, if the plural is of an acronym: DVD’s, CD’s, TV’s. Please tell me that this is not the case.
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### Author:  [@Orange\_Skinner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orange_Skinner)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443/50 "2003-08-12T06:06:20Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by LindyHopper \*
> \*\*
> **Orange Skinner** : What did the cheerleaders’ sign say, anyway? \*\*
I believe it said, _Lets Go Tigers!_ before editing.
Granted, the apostrophe in this case wasn’t a possession problem, but a contraction one, which is a different form of apostrophe abuse–but still. I’m tired of the apostrophe getting pushed around! And don’t even get me started on the slow decent to blackness that my beloved semi-colon is on…poor thing. 😉
[sub]I bet if you told them that let’s actually meant let us, they’d look at you like you were insane…but we’re more of an athletically-geared school than an academic one, anyway. :rolleyes:[/sub]
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### Author:  [@Orange\_Skinner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orange_Skinner)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443/51 "2003-08-12T06:12:13Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by ElwoodCuse \*
> \*\*The other day online I saw several people claiming that it’s actually perfectly acceptable to use apostrophes to indicate the plural, if the plural is of an acronym: DVD’s, CD’s, TV’s. Please tell me that this is not the case. \*\*
Actually, I think they’re right, **ElwoodCuse** …I’m pretty sure it can go both ways in the case of acronyms and the like; DVDs or DVD’s, I believe, are both exceptable (not possitive on that, though).
I know it can be used to denote the plural with numbers, as in “the 70’s” or, “there are two 8’s in her phone number.” Again, IIRC, this is optional–it can be either 8s or 8’s. It is this optional thing, I believe, that caused all the confusion in the first place.
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### Author:  [@sajwalke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sajwalke)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443/52 "2003-08-12T06:12:20Z")
Do not wait in line
For loans or for new accounts:
Use window on right
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### Author:  [@Mudshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mudshark)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443/53 "2003-08-12T06:46:28Z")
There is a muffin place near here called **Maggies Magic Muffins**.
They used to have a giant billboard that didn’t have the possessive, and it pissed me off. The sign outside the store doesn’t have the possessive, either.
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### Author:  [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443/54 "2003-08-12T07:16:33Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Mudshark \*
> There is a muffin place near here called **Maggies Magic Muffins**.
Maybe there’s more than one Maggie working there, and the muffins don’t belong to any of them.😉
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### Author:  [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443/55 "2003-08-12T12:50:42Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Orange Skinner \*
> \*\*Actually, I think they’re right, **ElwoodCuse** …I’m pretty sure it can go both ways in the case of acronyms and the like; DVDs or DVD’s, I believe, are both exceptable (not possitive on that, though).
>
> I know it can be used to denote the plural with numbers, as in “the 70’s” or, “there are two 8’s in her phone number.” Again, IIRC, this is optional–it can be either 8s or 8’s. It is this optional thing, I believe, that caused all the confusion in the first place. \*\*
It is certainly not permissible at _my_ magazine, and never _will_ be, as long as I have breath in my body.
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### Author:  [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443/56 "2003-08-12T13:48:31Z")
Apostrophes used to be used for plurals of acronyms, but as acronyms have become more common, this practice is falling out of favor.
They can still be used for single letters or numbers, where omission might lead to confusion. For example, imagine leaving the apostrophe out of the following phrase: “There are three a’s in ‘bananas.’”
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### Author:  [@dalovindj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalovindj)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443/57 "2003-08-12T13:56:43Z")
> [@](#):
>
> dalovindj: Your original post’s VB code has a pair of single quotes on the left of the URL and a single double quote on the right. It’s hard to tell with the typeface the board uses, but since I have eagle eyes and am a nerd, I notice these kinds of things.
Son of a bitch. You’re right. Good eye. Man, if only I had planned this. Another way of saying “single quotes” is “apostrophe”. At least on _my_ keyboard I use the same key for single quotes and the apostrophe. There are two alt-### combos that will get me a curly single quote (hooking one way or the other), but no single key can accomplish the same. So, somehow, in a thread about banning apostrophe’s, I was totally confounded and confused by a broken link, a broken link that was bugging me all day, and a broken link that ends up having been caused by a couple of rougue apostrophe’s masquerading as a single quotation mark.
Now, I assume I’ll have to put up with accusations of apostrophe smuggling, trolling, or, heaven forbid - telling a bad joke, but I assure you I am guilty only of falling victim to a particularly ironic case of **Gaudere’s Law**. But I can’t escape the lingering feeling that the apostrophe isn’t so innocent in all of this. I’ve been set up. I am afraid that I’ve been outsmarted by a punctuation mark. In my first post I conformed to the ban and excluded all apostrophes. The apostrophes, not the type to “go gentle into that good night”, somehow worked their way into my sub-concious & sabotaged my link. They even made me make a big deal about the messed up coding as if to flaunt the fact that they were hiding out in the open. Out among us. Blending right in as if they _belonged_ in my post. Unlike **Eve** ’s malicious use of the apostrophe in her wrist slashing joke, I am a _victim_ here!
Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Thanks, **Haucky** , for the Sherlock treatment. I got a good belly laugh when I realized what had happened. I never would have noticed, and it would have gnawed at me forever. If they ever do ban the apostraphe they should make you the head of the Secret Police.
DaLovin’ Dj
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### Author:  [@dalovindj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalovindj)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443/58 "2003-08-12T14:41:31Z")
And there are two superfluous & unintentional apostrophes in that last post. Un-fucking believable. I’m getting gunshy everytime I go to hit a key on that side of the keyboard now.
:_bangs head against desk_:
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### Author:  [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443/59 "2003-08-12T15:16:29Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Orange Skinner \*
> \*\*I hear you…once, last year, the Cheerleading squad put up this sign for a pep rally. I added the missing apostrophe in with my lipstick.
> \*\*
Signage executed by high schoolers is a whole black pit unto itself. I don’t remember problems with apostrophes as much as randomly mixing upper and lower case letters, resulting in such gems as “ROllER SKaTINg TONITE”.
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### Author:  [@Bren\_Cameron\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bren_Cameron_1)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-just-ban-fucking-apostrophes/194443/60 "2003-08-12T16:18:37Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by ElwoodCuse \*
> \*\*The other day online I saw several people claiming that it’s actually perfectly acceptable to use apostrophes to indicate the plural, if the plural is of an acronym: DVD’s, CD’s, TV’s. Please tell me that this is not the case. \*\*
According to several sites, it is if there’s internal punctuation.
[http://pcroot.cern.ch/TaligentDocs/TaligentOnline/DocumentRoot/1.0/Docs/books/SG/SG\_5.html](http://pcroot.cern.ch/TaligentDocs/TaligentOnline/DocumentRoot/1.0/Docs/books/SG/SG_5.html)
> [@](#):
>
> Forming plurals of abbreviations
> When forming plurals of abbreviated forms:
>
> Form the plural with a lowercase s (never an es).
> PBXs (not PBXes)
>
> If the abbreviation contains internal punctuation, form the plural with an apostrophe s.
> Ph.D.'s
> M.C.S.'s
> (but CPUs, LANs)
And also
[http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/apostrophe.htm](http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/apostrophe.htm)
> [@](#):
>
> An apostrophe is also used to form some plurals, especially the plural of letters and digits. Raoul got four A’s last term and his sister got four 6’s in the ice-skating competition. This is particularly useful when the letter being pluralized is in the lower case: “minding one’s p’s and q’s” or “Don’t forget to dot your i’s.” (In a context in which the plural is clear, apostrophes after upper-case letters are not necessary: “He got four As, two Bs, and three Cs.”) It is no longer considered necessary or even correct to create the plural of years or decades or abbreviations with an apostrophe:
>
> He wrote several novels during the 1930s.
> There are fifteen PhDs on our faculty.
> My sister and I have identical IQs.
> (If you wrote Ph.D. with periods, you would add an apostrophe before the pluralizing “s”: Ph.D.'s) If the abbreviation or acronym ends in “S,” it’s a good idea to separate this final “S” from the pluralizing “s” with an apostrophe: SOS’s
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