I hate apostrophes.


The plight of the poor, humble apostrophe seems to be the talk of the town. The demise of the proper use of the apostrophe is a reoccurring topic amongst grammar-nazis, practically every time I open a newspaper an apostro-freak or other grammar enthusiast is busy mourning the end of the English language as we know it. Today, buoyed by another violent disagreement with the evil piece of punctuation, I’ve decided to weigh into the debate just to register my opinion that I don’t give a damn that no one respects them anymore. I hate apostrophes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some kind of radical anti-grammar anarchist, nor do I suffer from a lack of belief in good spelling (i just fail, time and time again, at exhibiting this quality.) But apostrophes baffle, bemuse and down-right abuse me. Despite getting top of English in high school and having a university degree (gloat gloat gloat) I still haven’t got the hang of the bastards. You may have already noticed, in fact it may be painfully, torturously apparent to you that I don’t really know what I’m doing with apostrophes but let’s (the little blue line that just appeared there informed me I was missing a certain ‘ )be frank, if I could go back in time and find the guy who invented apostrophes – he’d be dead in an instant. It’s not my fault really. It’s the education system, its the rise of the “Microsoft Word will fix it” mentality - society in general (but never the individual) is to blame for the fact that apostrophes, long division and the ability to spell tomorrow and tomatoes correctly and consistently (without spell check), remain outside my understanding. So, having got that off my chest, all I have to do now is sit back and wait for the day when the apostrophe finally ceases to torment me and passes firmly into the realm of antiquity...