The Apostrophe Patrol never takes off during the holidays.
In fact, December is one of our busiest months because it seems like 50% of Christmas cards incorrectly pluralize the senders' last name.
If I see another "Happy Holidays from the Smith's" or "from the Smiths' I'm going to be ill.
In an effort to get out in front of this avalanche of punctuation incorrectness, we are posting Kate Brannen's wonderful Guide to Properly Pluralize Your Name on Christmas Messages.
Sometimes the Apostrophe Patrol shifts from enforcement to extending congratulations. We've been checking every elevator we've entered for a long time in cities throughout the nation.
They ALL seem to get this right. Keep it up! But it's OK to come down too.
Violations do not just occur in English speaking countries. This is from Costa Rica. But we believe the penalties should be milder when English is not the perp's native tongue.
I understand that nurses, doctors and hospital administrators receive training and education in very technical fields. But apparently their curriculum is a little light on grammar. I guess the third one could be correct . . . if it was a really tiny hospital . . . with just one patient.
It's always fun to poke at large companies that presumably have scads of educated executives who would approve everything. I guess there could be an argument that they intended to reflect lots of little Caesers running around, hence no possessive. Methinks Brutus would not agree and would take a knife to the VP in charge of advertising.
So, walking our only grandchild, Colby, a precious little dog, and I noticed I had grabbed three comfortable things to wear (old tennis shoes, old slacks with cuffs - and DARK socks) and decided it was time to bring back High Street Beat.
There will still be some local events/issues and -- my passion, Apostrophe Patrol, but also some Second Half of Life stuff. More on that later. One hint: only when you're well in to the Second Half can you wear dark socks and tennis shoes and not really care! Hope you enjoy.
Calling stores "shoppes" is a little haughty, but hats off to the Lake Ozark developers who added our little friend after "Eagles" at the right spot, noting that more than one eagle may land there. Really?
Same for Kohl's. Both understand how to be correct and also stylish. Menards? Well, they should get their act together. The company was founded in 1959 by John Menard. Therefore, an apostrophe please.
But they are from Wisconsin, after all.
Traeger Grills are wonderful. This little cookbook title, however, is problematic.
An apostrophe can be used to show a letter is intentionally deleted. A typical example is when we depict a rural or casual pronunciation of the "ing" at the end of a verb. Example: "I'm singin' in the rain."
The good folks at Traeger apparantly wanted to send a rural/casual message, but they did not want to go so far as to delete the "g" at the end of "Traegering."
Hence, this odd case of an apostrophe that has no purpose whatsoever. It's just smoke.
This is one of the most unique violations we've seen. This little apostrophe thought he was a comma. He appears on the front page of today's News Tribune.
Sometimes the absence of an apostrophe can lead to interesting concepts. AP Patrol investigators caught this on the Hill in St. Louis a couple of weeks ago. The sign, and the violation, are very old. But there is no Statute of Limitations on AP violations.
High Street Beat is the personal weblog of John Landwehr, a partner at Cook Vetter Doerhoff & Landwehr and a former Mayor of Jefferson City. Your comments, feedback and suggestions are welcome.