Really bad news’

[DoctorStrangelove]

And there we go.

[JohntheBike]

“ A society dedicated to preserving the “much-abused” apostrophe is to be shut down as its chairman said “ignorance and laziness” had John Richards, who worked in journalism for much of his career, started the Apostrophe Protection Society in 2001 after he retired.

Now 96, Richards is calling time on the society, which lists the three simple rules for correct use of the punctuation mark.

Writing on the society’s website, he said: “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!”

'Laziness has won': apostrophe society admits its defeat | UK news | The Guardian

the problem is that the language can evolve, even if it starts evolving from a point of error. Like using the phrase "for free". Different generations can also be taught differently. I was always taught that it was bad grammar to start a sentence with AND. However, there is some debate amongst trendy writers that this is permissible.

We've also had a debate here previously about the use of apostrophes. I was taught that if you made a plural of an abbreviation, then the S would be preceded by an apostrophe, as in BMW's MP's etc. But in that previous debate, most on here, who I'd suspect are much younger than me, did not accept that and they should be written as BMWs and MPs.

However, the examples listed here are clearly incorrect.

[BrilloPad]

Grammar Nazis are anti-semantic.

[RSoles]

Aw, never mind, their, they're, there.....

[Uncle Albert]

At times like this I like to roll out this picture from a few years back.



They even misspelled the name of their own restaurant!

Just to avoid any confusion, the restaurant is in London, not Spain where apostrophe abuse might be more understandable.

[AtW]

“ A society dedicated to preserving the “much-abused” apostrophe is to be shut down as its chairman said “ignorance and laziness” had John Richards, who worked in journalism for much of his career, started the Apostrophe Protection Society in 2001 after he retired.

Now 96, Richards is calling time on the society, which lists the three simple rules for correct use of the punctuation mark.

Writing on the society’s website, he said: “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!”

'Laziness has won': apostrophe society admits its defeat | UK news | The Guardian