Apostrophe Quotes

I might not use capital letters. But I would definitely use an apostrophe…and probably a period. I’m a huge fan of punctuation.

The rule is: the word 'it's' (with apostrophe) stands for 'it is' or 'it has'. If the word does not stand for 'it is' or 'it has' then what you require is 'its'. This is extremely easy to grasp. Getting your itses mixed up is the greatest solecism in the world of punctuation. No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, 'Good food at it's best', you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.

Never underestimate the power of a well-placed apostrophe.

Why did the Apostrophe Protection Society not have a militant wing? Could I start one? Where do you get balaclavas?

To those who care about punctuation, a sentence such as "Thank God its Friday" (without the apostrophe) rouses feelings not only of despair but of violence. The confusion of the possessive "its" (no apostrophe) with the contractive "it's" (with apostrophe) is an unequivocal signal of illiteracy and sets off a Pavlovian "kill" response in the average stickler.

For any true stickler, you see, the sight of the plural word “Book’s” with an apostrophe in it will trigger a ghastly private emotional process similar to the stages of bereavement, though greatly accelerated. First there is shock. Within seconds, shock gives way to disbelief, disbelief to pain, and pain to anger. Finally (and this is where the analogy breaks down), anger gives way to a righteous urge to perpetrate an act of criminal damage with the aid of a permanent marker.

Those spineless types who talk about abolishing the apostrophe are missing the point.

They had just digested a recent meal of prepositions and were happily farting out apostrophes and ampersands; the air was heav'y with th'em&.

There are all kinds of pedants around with more time to read and imitate Lynne Truss and John Humphrys than to write poems, love-letters, novels and stories it seems. They whip out their Sharpies and take away and add apostrophes from public signs, shake their heads at prepositions which end sentences and mutter at split infinitives and misspellings, but do they bubble and froth and slobber and cream with joy at language? Do they ever let the tripping of the tips of their tongues against the tops of their teeth transport them to giddy euphoric bliss? Do they ever yoke impossible words together for the sound-sex of it? Do they use language to seduce, charm, excite, please, affirm and tickle those they talk to? Do they? I doubt it. They’re too farting busy sneering at a greengrocer’s less than perfect use of the apostrophe. Well sod them to Hades. They think they’re guardians of language. They’re no more guardians of language than the Kennel Club is the guardian of dogkind.

Once upon a time Somebody say to me (This is a dog talkin' now) What is your Conceptual Continuity? Well, I told him right then (Fido said) It should be easy to see The crux of the biscuit Is the Apostrophe(')

the Law of Conservation of Apostrophes. A heresy since the 13th century, this law states that a balance exists in nature: “For every apostrophe omitted from an it’s, there is an extra one put into an its.” Thus the number of apostrophes in circulation remains constant,

Not long ago, I advertised for perverse rules of grammar, along the lines of "Remember to never split an infinitive" and "The passive voice should never be used." The notion of making a mistake while laying down rules ("Thimk," "We Never Make Misteaks") is highly unoriginal, and it turns out that English teachers have been circulating lists of fumblerules for years. As owner of the world's largest collection, and with thanks to scores of readers, let me pass along a bunch of these never-say-neverisms: * Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read. * Don't use no double negatives. * Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; and never where it isn't. * Reserve the apostrophe for it's proper use and omit it when its not needed. * Do not put statements in the negative form. * Verbs has to agree with their subjects. * No sentence fragments. * Proofread carefully to see if you any words out. * Avoid commas, that are not necessary. * If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. * A writer must not shift your point of view. * Eschew dialect, irregardless. * And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. * Don't overuse exclamation marks!!! * Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents. * Writers should always hyphenate between syllables and avoid un-necessary hyph-ens. * Write all adverbial forms correct. * Don't use contractions in formal writing. * Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided. * It is incumbent on us to avoid archaisms. * If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. * Steer clear of incorrect forms of verbs that have snuck in the language. * Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixed metaphors. * Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. * Never, ever use repetitive redundancies. * Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing. * If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, resist hyperbole. * Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration. * Don't string too many prepositional phrases together unless you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death. * Always pick on the correct idiom. * "Avoid overuse of 'quotation "marks."'" * The adverb always follows the verb. * Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives." (New York Times, November 4, 1979; later also published in book form)

one might dare to say that while the full stop is the lumpen male of the punctuation world (do one job at a time; do it well; forget about it instantly), the apostrophe is the frantically multi-tasking female, dotting hither and yon, and succumbing to burnout from all the thankless effort.

It also bugs me when I hear about "Angelina's adopted son" or "Rosie's adopted children"--as if that word will always separate them instead of binding them together. Angelina's son and Rosie's kids and I sould get a regular apostrophe-plus-s like everybody else.

You know where the name hell came from." He crossed his hands on his lap. "After I fell, I kept repeating to myself, God will forgive me. God will forgive me. Centuries of repeating this, I started to shorten it to He'll forgive me. Then finally to one word, He'll. He'll. "Somewhere along the way, I lost that apostrophe and now it's only Hell. But hidden in that one word is God will forgive me. God will forgive me. That is what is behind my door, you understand. A world of no apostrophes and, therefore, no hope.

If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur

Step back, I’m about to hit the CAPS LOCK key. DO NOT EVER ATTEMPT TO USE AN APOSTROPHE TO PLURALIZE A WORD. “NOT EVER” AS IN “NEVER.” You may reapproach.

In primary school, sports day was the one day of the year when the less academically gifted students could triumph...As if a silver in the egg-and-spoon race was some sort of compensation for not understanding how to use an apostrophe

If this satanic sprinkling of redundant apostrophes causes no little gasp of horror or quickening of the pulse, you should probably put down this book. By all means congratulate yourself that you are not a pedant or even a stickler; that you are happily equipped to live in a world of plummeting punctuation standards; but just don't bother to go any further.

the Law of Conservation of Apostrophes. A heresy since the 13th century, this law states that a balance exists in nature: “For every apostrophe omitted from an it’s, there is an extra one put into an its.” Thus the number of apostrophes in circulation remains constant, even if this means we have double the reason to go and bang our heads against a wall.

I mean, full stops are quite important, aren't they? Yet by contrast to the versatile apostrophe, they are stolid little chaps, to say the least. In fact one might dare to say that while the full stop is the lumpen male of the punctuation world (do one job at a time; do it well; forget about it instantly), the apostrophe is the frantically multi-tasking female, dotting hither and yon, and succumbing to burn-out from all the thankless effort.

As if a silver in the egg-and-spoon race was some sort of compensation for not understanding how to use an apostrophe.

The apostrophe in Can't was added by someone who did not believe in the power of Can.

I saw a sign for "Book's" with an apostrophe in it, and something deep inside me snapped; snapped with that melancholy sound you hear in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, like a far-off cable breaking in a mine-shaft.

...by tragic historical coincidence a period of abysmal under-educating in literacy has coincided with this unexpected explosion of global self-publishing. Thus people who don't know their apostrophe from their elbow are positively invited to disseminate their writings to anyone on the planet stupid enough to double-click and scroll.

Ruth smiles, which rearranges the lines on her face. She inverts her parentheses and transforms commas into apostrophes. The pattern is that of a woman who has no regrets.

She re-marked her lips with her lipstick. I saw sprays of silver in her coarse hair. I saw inscriptions of her years around her mouth, a solid crease between her brows from a lifetime of cynicism. The posture of a woman who had stood in a casual spotlight in every room she'd ever been in, not for gloss or perfection, for self-possession. Everything she touched she added an apostrophe to.

Of all fuckin' days" "Okay, please don't say fuckin'." She shoots me a self-conscious glance. "I thought we liked cussing." "We love cussing. But we say the fucking g. I don't want to hear that apostrophe, Mom.

Sport is a mystery to me. In primary school, sports day was the one day of the year when the less academically gifted students could triumph, winning prizes for jumping fastest in a sack, or running from Point A to Point B more quickly than their classmates. How they loved to wear those badges on their blazers the next day! As if a silver in the egg-and-spoon race was some sort of compensation for not understanding how to use an apostrophe.

Mr F.'s Aunt, who had eaten her pie with great solemnity, and who had been elaborating some grievous scheme of injury in her mind since her first assumption of that public position on the Marshal's steps, took the present opportunity of addressing the following Sibyllic apostrophe to the relict of her late nephew. 'Bring him for'ard, and I'll chuck him out o' winder!' Flora tried in vain to soothe the excellent woman by explaining that they were going home to dinner. Mr F.'s Aunt persisted in replying, 'Bring him for'ard and I'll chuck him out o' winder!' Having reiterated this demand an immense number of times, with a sustained glare of defiance at Little Dorrit, Mr F.'s Aunt folded her arms, and sat down in the corner of the pie-shop parlour; steadfastly refusing to budge until such time as 'he' should have been 'brought for'ard,' and the chucking portion of his destiny accomplished.

Take what the British call the "greengrocer's apostrophe," named for aberrant signs advertising cauliflower's or carrot's in local fruit and vegetable shops.

A man who will misuse an apostrophe is capable of anything.” Con Houlihan

The Moms revealed that if you're not crazy then speaking to someone who isn't there is termed apostrophe and is valid art.

He was… a lost apostrophe in search of a word to which he might belong

[Lydia tut-tutted on seeing the grocer's apostrophe]

You're my apostrophe, you make me belong.

Apostrophes, however, I love with all my heart. I support the correctly used apostrophe with that kind of fierce emotional investment in an irrelevance that most people reserve for football.

I'll take a drive to Beverly Hills Just before dawn An' knock the little jockeys Off the rich people's lawn An' before they get up I'll be gone, I'll be gone Before they get up I'll be knocking the jockeys off the lawn

And to read is to understand, to question, to know, to forget, to erase, to deface, to repeat--that is to say, the endless prosopopoeia by which the dead are made to have a face and a voice which tells the allegory of their demise and allows us to apostrophize them in our turn. No degree of knowledge can ever stop this madness, for it is the madness of words.

In Beachcomber’s hilarious columns about the Apostropher Royal in The Express, a certain perversely comforting law is often reiterated: the Law of Conservation of Apostrophes. A heresy since the 13th century, this law states that a balance exists in nature: “For every apostrophe omitted from an it’s, there is an extra one put into an its.” Thus the number of apostrophes in circulation remains constant, even if this means we have double the reason to go and bang our heads against a wall.

In Beachcomber’s hilarious columns about the Apostropher Royal in The Express, a certain perversely comforting law is often reiterated: the Law of Conservation of Apostrophes. A heresy since the 13th century, this law states that a balance exists in nature: 'For every apostrophe omitted from an it’s, there is an extra one put into an its.’ Thus the number of apostrophes in circulation remains constant, even if this means we have double the reason to go and bang our heads against a wall.

The rule is: the word “it’s” (with apostrophe) stands for “it is” or “it has”. If the word does not stand for “it is” or “it has” then what you require is “its”. This is extremely easy to grasp. Getting your itses mixed up is the greatest solecism in the world of punctuation. No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, “Good food at it’s best”, you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.

I suppose this is a trivial matter but I do want to object to the maddening fuss-fidget punctuation which one of your editors is attempting to impose on my story. I said it before but I'll say it again, that unless necessary for clarity of meaning I would prefer a minimum of goddamn commas, hyphens, apostrophes, quotation marks and fucking (most obscene of all punctuation marks) semi-colons. I've had to waste hours erasing that storm of flyshit on the typescript. [Regarding "The Monkey Wrench Gang"]

What was the apostrophe doing there? Did the doctor own the Meescham? And what was it with exclamation marks? Did people not know what they were for? Surprise, anger, joy—that's what exclamation marks were for. They had nothing to do with who resided where.

Well right about that time, people, A fur trapper Who was strictly from commercial (Strictly Commershil) Had the unmedicated audacity to jump up from behind my igyaloo (Peek-a-Boo Woo-ooo-ooo) And he started in to whippin' on my fav'rite baby seal With a lead-filled snow shoe . . .

As we shall see, the tractable apostrophe has always done its proper jobs in our language with enthusiasm and elegance, but it has never been taken seriously enough; its talent for adaptability has been cruelly taken for granted; and now, in an age of supreme graphic frivolity, we pay the price.

From time to time, her dialogue will be rendered in ordinary English, which Louise does not speak. To do full justice to her speech would require a ladder of footnotes and glosses, a tic of apostrophes (aphaeresis, hyphaeresis, apocope), and a Louise-ese/English dictionary of phonetic spellings.

This has to be the disease for you Now scientists call this disease Bromidrosis But us regular folks Who might wear tennis shoes Or an occasional python boot Know this exquisite little inconvenience By the name of: Stink Foot

You know where the name hell came from.” He crossed his hands on his lap. “After I fell, I kept repeating to myself, God will forgive me. God will forgive me. Centuries of repeating this, I started to shorten it to He’ll forgive me. Then finally to one word, He’ll. He’ll. “Somewhere along the way, I lost that apostrophe and now it’s only Hell. But hidden in that one word is God will forgive me. God will forgive me. That is what is behind my door, you understand. A world of no apostrophes and, therefore, no hope.

Does he honestly think he’s still in charge?” Mashona wondered. “He thinks Human’s First has an apostrophe.

As if silver in the egg-and-spoon race was some sort of compensation for not understanding how to use an apostrophe.

Note that the apostrophe in fuck's sake is necessary because fuck in this instance is a noun; therefore the word fuck is a possessive noun that takes an apostrophe.

There was an apostrophe-s back then, Tom's Lake, but time condenses experience.

If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

...curl into each other like apostrophes within a quotation mark as they talk. I realize that two years is not a long time.

Everything she touched she added an apostrophe to.

Meanwhile, there’s no counterbalancing evidence that correctly applied apostrophes keep comma numbers down, or that the grocer’s ones encourage pesky hyphens.

it s too great a blow underlined to a man apostrophe s pride to see a woman influence other women more than he can himself

This sally somewhat nettled Wilhelm; but he concealed his sentiments, remembering that Werner used to listen with composure to his apostrophes.

The Moms revealed that if you’re not crazy then speaking to someone who isn’t there is termed apostrophe and is valid art.

Writing is, like gender or dominatricing, a kind of performance. But the craft of writing is primarily an art of making decisions. I often like to terrorize my students by insisting that every single notation—every piece of punctuation, every word, every paragraph break—in a piece of writing is a decision. You know when something is done, I tell them (they always want to know how to know when something is done), when you know the argument for every single choice, when not a single apostrophe has slipped by uninterrogated, when every word has been swapped for its synonym and then recovered. I don’t mean to take the fun out of creation, or even to impose my own laborious process on them, but I actually believe this. Not in the first draft, or even the fifth, but by the end, I want to have stripped as many tics and defaults, as many blind choices as is in my power. I want to be awake to all my choices.

Once a hunter met a lion near the hungry critter's lair, and the way that lion mauled him was decidedly unfair; but the hunter never whimpered when the surgeons, with their thread, sewed up forty-seven gashes in his mutilated head; and he showed the scars in triumph, and they gave him pleasant fame, and he always blessed the lion that had camped upon his frame. Once that hunter, absent minded, sat upon a hill of ants, and about a million bit him, and you should have seen him dance! And he used up lots of language of a deep magenta tint, and apostrophized the insects in a style unfit to print. And it's thus with worldly troubles; when the big ones come along, we serenely go to meet them, feeling valiant, bold and strong, but the weary little worries with their poisoned stings and smarts, put the lid upon our courage, make us gray, and break our hearts.

In her new, albeit fragile, mood, this letter does not unduly distress her. One lesson she has learned is that any opinion expressed by a person who does not understand how to use an apostrophe may be disregarded with impunity.

Some of them had bits of cloth still on them, but most were nothing but whorls and spars of bone. They were a mess of bony apostrophes, commas, and exclamation marks brushed off some giant’s notebook into a tangled, ungrammatical heap.

when certain married words neglect to wear their apostrophes, they might be mistaken for their single friends: The identity of he’ll just went to hell. She’ll is like a shell of its former self. We’ll looks like it wishes it were a well.

Hypocritical, egotistical Don't wanna be the parenthetical, hypothetical Working onto something that I'm proud of, out of the box An epoxy to the world and the vision we've lost I'm an apostrophe I'm just a symbol to remind you that there's more to see I'm just a product of the system, a catastrophe And yet a masterpiece, and yet I'm half-diseased And when I am deceased At least I go down to the grave and die happily Leave the body and my soul to be a part of thee I do what it takes

For in his later books, if he had hit upon some great truth, or upon the name of an historic cathedral, he would break off his narrative, and in an invocation, an apostrophe, a long prayer, would give free rein to those exhalations which, in the earlier volumes, had been immanent in his prose, discernible only in a rippling of its surface, and perhaps even more delightful, more harmonious when they were thus veiled, when the reader could give no precise indication of where their murmuring began or where it died away.

Your diet shouldn’t have a name or be something you can tweet about using the # sign.  If you, in your chronic dieting ways must name it, it should be your first name, followed by an apostrophe s, and the word “Diet.”  So for example, what I eat is referred to as “Matt’s Diet.”  If your name is Jean Claude Van Damme, then what you eat is called “Jean Claude’s Diet,” and probably consists mostly of metal chards and King Cobra filets.  If your name is Shooter McGavin, then you probably eat pieces of shit like Happy Gilmore for breakfast.

Let’s start at the beginning, D’aron. Is it Daron or Daron or Daron? Daron, ma’am. What about this apostrophe? The name’s . . . Irish, he started to say before catching himself . . . The name’s misspelled. I never figured why it’s like that or how to git ’em to change it.

But in vain did he apostrophize the insect in this new language, born of sudden inspiration, as a cockroach's understanding is not equal to such a tirade: the insect continued on its journey to a corner of the room, with movements sanctified by an ageless ritual of the cockroach world.

We had a humiliating and lengthy wait at a DONT WALK sign with not a car in sight for miles. Dad was a press about jaywalking. Or maybe he just like to stare down what he'd testily called the "grammatical error sanctioned by the state." There is, of course, no apostrophe in the DONT WALK sign.

You are blazing to me. You are so blazing. No, you are better than blazing: you're blazin'. No G just an apostrophe. You don't need a G, cause i'm your G. So we dropped the G, and tonight you're gonna drop your G, String. Let me see that crack girl, I bet it aint whack girl. Love, your not so secret admirer-er

The deletion of an apostrophe and a single letter turned “Jane’s” into “Jane,” and the words “and her” were inserted immediately thereafter. Now the crown was to pass not to the male heirs of Jane Grey but to “the Lady Jane and her heirs masles.” (Edward was of course highly literate, but spelling was a kind of free-form creative art in the sixteenth century

We didn't, after all, sing "Another One Bites The Dust" as the coffin was carried out; Hazel and the vicar had settled instead on the more traditional "How Great Thou Art". And Aunty Rose's old adversary the mayor was pressed into service as a coffin bearer to replace Matt. Rose Adele Thornton, born in Bath, England, died in Waimanu, New Zealand, a mere fifty-three years later. Adept and compassionate nurse, fervent advocate of animal welfare, champion of correct diction and tireless crusader against the misuse of apostrophes. Experimental chef, peerless aunt, brave sufferer and true friend. She had the grace and courage to thoroughly enjoy a life which denied her everything she most wanted. The bravest woman I ever knew.

I have just had a thought about the cut of the Minerva's spanker-boom.' 'How little I understand of that sentence,' she said, admiring his drawing. 'And is there truly something on a ship called a f'c'sle? It seems to have an unwarranted excess of apostrophes. My suspicion is that when we landlubbers are not by, seamen do not use these words at all and talk quite normally.

But for the general population next Sunday is simply Mothers’ Day. Or Mother’s Day? Oh dear. Where should that apostrophe go? Purists brush this dilemma testily aside because it’s Mothering Sunday. They would no more say Mother’s Day than they would split an infinitive or drop litter. Such people make up ninety-eight per cent of the population of the UK’s Cathedral Closes.

We have now reached a level in which many people are not merely unacquainted with the fundamentals of punctuation, but don’t evidently realize that there are fundamentals. Many people—people who make posters for leading publishers, write captions for the BBC, compose letters and advertisements for important institutions—seem to think that capitalization and marks of punctuation are condiments that you sprinkle through any collection of words as if from a salt shaker. Here is a headline, exactly as presented, from a magazine ad for a private school in York: “Ranked by the daily Telegraph the top Northern Co-Educational day and Boarding School for Academic results.” All those capital letters are just random. Does anyone really think that the correct rendering of the newspaper is “the daily Telegraph”? Is it really possible to be that unobservant? Well, yes, as a matter of fact. Not long ago, I received an e-mail from someone at the Department for Children, Schools and Families asking me to take part in a campaign to help raise appreciation for the quality of teaching in Great Britain. Here is the opening line of the message exactly as it was sent to me: “Hi Bill. Hope alls well. Here at the Department of Children Schools and Families…” In the space of one line, fourteen words, the author has made three elemental punctuation errors (two missing commas, one missing apostrophe; I am not telling you more than that) and gotten the name of her own department wrong—this from a person whose job is to promote education. In a similar spirit, I received a letter not long ago from a pediatric surgeon inviting me to speak at a conference. The writer used the word “children’s” twice in her invitation, spelling it two different ways and getting it wrong both times. This was a children’s specialist working in a children’s hospital. How long do you have to be exposed to a word, how central must it be to your working life, to notice how it is spelled?

In Beachcomber’s hilarious columns about the Apostropher Royal in The Express, a certain perversely comforting law is often reiterated: the Law of Conservation of Apostrophes. A heresy since the 13th century, this law states that a balance exists in nature: "For every apostrophe omitted from an it’s, there is an extra one put into an its." Thus the number of apostrophes in circulation remains constant, even if this means we have double the reason to go and bang our heads against a wall.

Les bêtes, cela parle; et Dupont de Nemours Les comprend, chants et cris, gaîté, colère, amours. C'est dans Perrault un fait, dans Homère un prodige; Phèdre prend leur parole au vol et la rédige; La Fontaine, dans l'herbe épaisse et le genêt Rôdait, guettant, rêvant, et les espionnait; Ésope, ce songeur bossu comme le Pinde, Les entendait en Grèce, et Pilpaï dans l'Inde; Les clairs étangs le soir offraient leurs noirs jargons A monsieur Florian, officier de dragons; Et l'âpre Ézéchiel, l'affreux prophète chauve, Homme fauve, écoutait parler la bête fauve. Les animaux naïfs dialoguent entr'eux. Et toujours, que ce soit le hibou ténébreux, L'ours qu'on entend gronder, l'âne qu'on entend braire, Ou l'oie apostrophant le dindon, son grand frère, Ou la guêpe insultant l'abeille sur l'Hybla, Leur bêtise à l'esprit de l'homme ressembla.

Erroneous plurals of nouns, as vallies or echos. Barbarous compound nouns, as viewpoint or upkeep. Want of correspondence in number between noun and verb where the two are widely separated or the construction involved. Ambiguous use of pronouns. Erroneous case of pronouns, as whom for who, and vice versa, or phrases like “between you and I,” or “Let we who are loyal, act promptly.” Erroneous use of shall and will, and of other auxiliary verbs. Use of intransitive for transitive verbs, as “he was graduated from college,” or vice versa, as “he ingratiated with the tyrant.” Use of nouns for verbs, as “he motored to Boston,” or “he voiced a protest.” Errors in moods and tenses of verbs, as “If I was he, I should do otherwise,” or “He said the earth was round.” The split infinitive, as “to calmly glide.” The erroneous perfect infinitive, as “Last week I expected to have met you.” False verb-forms, as “I pled with him.” Use of like for as, as “I strive to write like Pope wrote.” Misuse of prepositions, as “The gift was bestowed to an unworthy object,” or “The gold was divided between the five men.” The superfluous conjunction, as “I wish for you to do this.” Use of words in wrong senses, as “The book greatly intrigued me,” “Leave me take this,” “He was obsessed with the idea,” or “He is a meticulous writer.” Erroneous use of non-Anglicised foreign forms, as “a strange phenomena,” or “two stratas of clouds.” Use of false or unauthorized words, as burglarize or supremest. Errors of taste, including vulgarisms, pompousness, repetition, vagueness, ambiguousness, colloquialism, bathos, bombast, pleonasm, tautology, harshness, mixed metaphor, and every sort of rhetorical awkwardness. Errors of spelling and punctuation, and confusion of forms such as that which leads many to place an apostrophe in the possessive pronoun its. Of all blunders, there is hardly one which might not be avoided through diligent study of simple textbooks on grammar and rhetoric, intelligent perusal of the best authors, and care and forethought in composition. Almost no excuse exists for their persistent occurrence, since the sources of correction are so numerous and so available.

He was lanky, wiry as an apostrophe mark, and dressed in clothes that appeared to have come from a beggar’s bin.

She tucked an apostrophe of hair back from her eyes.

Something there is in cyberspace that doesn't love an apostrophe.

Tonight in Crooked Path, we’ll all visit our dear ones’ graves and lay wreaths made of apostrophes: the symbol of something missing.

In 2004 a Nazi was someone who corrected grocers’ apostrophes or refused you service in their pop-up restaurant. (It hadn’t yet acquired another of its current definitions: someone you don’t agree with.)

Somewhere along the way, I lost that apostrophe and now it’s only Hell. But hidden in that one word is God will forgive me. God will forgive me. That is what is behind my door, you understand. A world of no apostrophes and, therefore, no hope.

states were purging tens of thousands of voters for missing a single election, shutting down polling stations at the last minute in Democratic-leaning precincts. They were now requiring state ID just to vote, but were rejecting IDs that didn’t match the voter list to the letter or that were missing a single apostrophe. Since 2010, twenty-four states had passed one or all of these restrictions.

The academy is the architectural equivalent of what Husserl apostrophized as epoché—a building for shutting out the world and bracketing in concern, an asylum for the mysterious guests that we call ideas and theorems. In today’s parlance, we would call it a retreat or a hideaway.

It then progresses onto more challenging and commonly misused marks, like commas, apostrophes, hyphens, dashes, and parentheses.

an apostrophe humbled to a comma.

The videos I do watch embroil me in a world that knows no boundaries when it comes to lame attempts at scaring the viewer. A world that never settles for just the one exclamation mark and knows nothing of the apostrophe’s correct function. A world that owes Mark Snow, the composer of The X-Files theme tune, millions of royalty dollars.

The possessive case scarcely ever appears in Black English. Never use an apostrophe ('s) construction. If you wander into a possessive case component of an idea, then keep logically consistent: ours, his, theirs, mines. But, most likely, if you bump into such a component, you have wandered outside the underlying world-view of Black English.

KENDERALL TAKES US UP TO Fred's to "replenish." It's a café on the ninth floor of Barneys, it's very expensive and glamorous, and it confuses me immensely because Fred has an apostrophe but Barney doesn't so I'm not entirely sure what belongs to whom.

Most people generally agree that fucking apostrophes come from the Greek hē apóstrophos, meaning a turning away or an elision (the omission of a sound or syllable when speaking). Geoffroy Tory is considered one of the people responsible for introducing it to the French language in the 15th century, but sadly for us Geoffroy was not a linguist but a printer. So while his contribution to the world of print has proved invaluable, his contribution to the world of language is a little more debatable.

He patted te large book that was the Prose Portl and looked at Mycroft’s genetically engineered bookworms. They were on rest & recuperation at present in their goldfish bowl; they had just digested a recent meal of prepositions and were happily farting out apostrophes and ampersands

You must forget how to worry if you live here,” he advised, turning back to an exercise on the use of the apostrophe.

Without an apostrophe, she’ll is just a shell. And I am the turtle inside.

It takes only an apostrophe to make the word impossible possible according to the word itself

Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding 's. Follow this rule whatever the final consonant. Thus write: Charles's friend, Burns's poems, the witch's malice. ... The pronomial possessives hers, its, theirs, yours, and ours have no apostrophe. Indefinite pronouns, however, use the apostrophe to show possession: one's rights, somebody else's umbrella. A common error is to write it's for its, or vice versa. The first is a contraction, meaning "it is". The second is a possessive. It's a wise dog that scratches its own fleas.

He'll is just one apostrophe away from Hell. Keep that in mind.