Make Your Mark…Or Don’t
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008I’ll admit, I have a Pavlovian-esque reaction to a misused apostrophe – head shaking, eye rolling and even the occasional exasperated sigh. Think I’m overreacting to this tiny punctuation mark? A quick peek into the blogosphere reveals a multitude of lengthy and even heated discussions on the topic. I even stumbled upon The Apostrophe Protection Society, which isn’t nearly as funny as I had hoped.
Now I’m hardly qualified (or apparently passionate enough) to swing a bat with these major leaguers, but I do make an effort to avoid the most common misuses of the apostrophe: it’s/its and you’re/your.
‘Its’ is a possessive pronoun, while ‘It’s’ is a contraction of ‘it is’.
‘Your’ is a possessive pronoun, while ‘You’re’ is a contraction of ‘you are’.
Clearly, its use is necessary; it’s just not to be abused. Or ignored for that matter. The poor, modest apostrophe; it’s just trying to help!
Oh, apostrophe
Well-intended yet abused
It’s our fault, not yours