Apostrophes are being abused

A few years ago, I wrote a letter to your paper about the incorrect use of the apostrophe in our society and how I felt that, while kids were being taught the correct rules of grammar and punctuation in school, they were not seeing the correct use in society as a whole. I received quite a good response from teachers and others at that time.

Unfortunately, the problem has only gotten worse. Our family, including our 12and 10-year-old sons, notices the problem almost everywhere–signs, flyers, posters, bulletins, newsletters.

Happily, I rarely notice the error in newspapers and magazines––a sign that at least the professionals know what they are doing.

I would like to use your newspaper, once again, to point out that apostrophes are never supposed to be used for plurals.

Apostrophes are used to denote a missing letter or letters as in contractions (for example, it’s as a shortened way to write “it is”) or to denote possession (for example, the dog’s bone).

The apostrophe is misused everywhere, from handwritten signs at Little League fields (“soda’s– $1”) to flyers in school bulletins (“The class will meet on Thursday’s”). There are even some commercial retail stores that misspell their own name (“Kid’s Clothes”).

I fear an “apostrophe catastrophe,” whereby the mistakes will become so widespread that they will be accepted as proper grammar.

Let’s all use that old admonition our parents once used on us, but with a different meaning: “Watch your language!” Gail Ginell Thousand Oaks