Smartphones and WhatsApp leave the apostrophe in a sad state of decline – but at least it still has its protectors
- Signs around the world still misuse the apostrophe and texters disregard it completely. But at least the Apostrophe Protection Society has recently reversed its decision to fold following a surge in interest
Since 2001, the former subeditor (and confessed pedant) John Richards of Boston, Lincolnshire, in England, has waged a wilful battle against the chronic misuse and painful abuse of that most delicate of the English language’s pieces of punctuation, the apostrophe.
Last week, aged 96, he said he was throwing in the towel: “We ... have done our best but the ignorance and laziness present in modern times have won!” He complained that too many people, quite unaware of when an apostrophe should be used and when not, were “sprinkling it about where they feel it looks nice”.
I confess that I was one of a tiny band of pedants who signed up to the society in 2001, despite the fact that, soon after, he won a perverse kind of fame by appearing in a calendar of Britain’s dullest men – just behind the head of the UK’s Roundabout Appreciation Society.
I suspect a large proportion of the world’s subeditors have in recent years shared Richards’ pain, not just because of grammatical laxity, but because the ascent of email and texting on WhatsApp has created a relentless demand for speed and brevity, profoundly threatening the apostrophe.
