I DON'T know at which school 'Name and Address supplied' was 'taught', but to say that 'when there are more than one, an apostrophe should be used' shows abysmal ignorance of the English language.
The apostrophe is used to denote possession or missing letters. That is all.
I am becoming fed up with the increasing ignorance among the public of our own language, and it is particularly disgusting that the council has allowed at least two erro
rs on public plaques.
Can I just give the simple rules about the use of apostrophes so that anybody can understand them.
They are used to denote a missing letter or letters as in: I can't instead of I cannot, or it's instead of it is or it has.
They are used to denote possession as in: The dog's bone or Mr Jones's house. There is often confusion when the word ends with an 's' but the same rule applies. However, if there are several dogs, then it is the dogs' bone. If there are several people in the Jones family, then it is the Joneses' house (the plural of Jones is Joneses).
But they are never used to denote possession in its, ours, yours, theirs, or hers.
They are never used in plurals. They are frequently wrongly used in phrases like 'banana's for sale', '1,000's of bargains', or 'wide range of CD's available'.
A moment's thought will show that the apostrophes in these cases have no function at all – there are no letters missing nor are they possessive.
JOHN RICHARDS
(Chairman of the Apostrophe Protection Society)
Vauxhall Road, Boston
The full article contains 274 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
