For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

The lost apostrophe (07.10.11)

Harrods cast it aside in 1928; Selfridges followed 17 years later, but by then Gordon Selfridge was too busy having his way with twin showgirls The Dolly Sisters, then worry too much about what went over the door of his emporium. Currys have dispensed with its services and Starbucks, well they are American, never used one in the first place.

The apostrophe is going the same way as the double space after a full point, which was much loved by legal secretaries when using manual typewriters. If punctuation marks were endangered species, then the apostrophe would be an Amazonian rainforest frog, or a fish dependent on Great Barrier Coral Reef for survival. We would have David Attenborough talking earnestly to camera in hushed tones about the need to keep it safe for future generations.

Despised by graphic designers who have been paid a fortune to “conceptualise” and “brand” a product, this little tick just gets in the way of their oh-so-cool layouts when they use their ubiquitous MS Comic San’s. And so corporate logos, billboards and most advertising omit this little symbol of possession or contraction.

This humble floating tadpole once looked to be consigned to the history books, but one valiant group have continued to keep it alive, albeit mistakenly. The greengrocer’s apple’s and pear’s were for many years a reassuring sight on our high street. This kind of sign-writer did not want to be faulted for omitting an apostrophe, so they were willing to run down their stick of chalk whenever an “s” is found on the end of a word. And it is this reverence for punctuation, an anxiety, even in this misuse which has kept it alive.

The large supermarkets seem to have put pay to the humble high street greengrocer with his random tadpole placed before an “s”, and Sainsbury’s, not content with taking all the customers from high street grocers, has even taken on the mantle of using their own apostrophe, the only supermarket chain to retain its use.

If punctuation has a gender then the full point is undeniably male, while the rather contrary apostrophe can only be a lady. The little mark shows up when she feels like it and at other times will appear gracefully in the wrong place altogether.

The Apostrophe Protection Society, established to defend the punctuation mark’s place in the English language, is calling on users of the inappropriate apostrophe to mend their ways, well they would. The Society probably has among its members the Colonel Blimps of this world who reside in The Shires expressing righteous indignation whenever an offending tadpole is spotted.

With the demise of the greengrocer, one might have expected the apostrophe to disappear from our streets, only appearing in its correct place, firmly disciplined within articles in The Times. But no, a new group has taken up the baton, and if anything in London at least is more numerous than the late lamented greengrocer.

Road works. Hundreds of them, in every street there is an urgent need to dig a hole and leave it for posterity. And many holes need the familiar temporary yellow road sign that often states the obvious.

The writer of the many road signs might not have apples and pears to sprinkle with fairly punctuation dust, but they have a surfeit of roads, streets, parks, squares . . . and yes cab’s.