Fed up with misuse, Apostrophe Protection Society closes
LONDON: After 18 years, former journalist John Richards shut shop at the Apostrophe Protection Society, calling it quits on his agenda to save a muchabused punctuation mark - the apostrophe.
He made the announcement on the society’s website, saying there are two reasons.
“One is that at 96 I am cutting back on my commitments and the second is that fewer organisations and individuals are now caring about the correct use of the apostrophe in the English language”.
“We, and our many supporters worldwide, have done our best but the ignorance and laziness present in modern times have won”.
Richards, who spent his working life as a reporter and sub-editor, was amazed how often reporters, especially the younger ones, seemed to have no idea of the correct use of what he calls a “very useful little device.”
After retirement, he found similar errors everywhere.
Convinced that he could no longer ignore the apostrophe’s misuse, he set up the Apostrophe
Protection Society in 2001.
At the time, he found hundreds of supporters of his effort from across the globe.
Some say only a journalist and sub-editor of an older generation could be so pedantic in the age of auto-correct and voice-to-text software, but the English language has faced some challenge in its home, forcing grammar vigilantes to literally take to the streets.
One such vigilante recently hit the headlines for quietly correcting signs in public places in the dead of the night, removing extraneous apostrophes.
He has been called the ‘Banksy of apostrophes’, after the iconic graffiti artist linked to the southwest English town of Bristol.
He remains unidentified, but told BBC that he worked in the engineering sector. Insisting that his work does not amount to a crime, he said: “It’s more of a crime to have the apostrophes wrong.”
There’s even a quirky Bad Grammar Award which was instituted by the Idler magazine to highlight “the incorrect use of English by people and institutions who should know better.”