“I have just returned from the Good Friday service at The Stations of the Cross,” said Eula Myers as Bubba replaced her windshield wipers at Wade’s Dixieco. “The program booklet told of Jesus suffering, Jesus journey, Jesus mother, Jesus cross, etc. Should this have been Jesus’s?”

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David Burrowes on apostrophe abuse and parallels in software development:

Usually, when people criticise the abuse of the apostrophe, they seem to have the attitude that the abusers are somehow ignorant, uneducated, or just incompetent.

Perhaps they are.

Yet, as I read through this blog, I realized that this attitude sounds very similar to the attitude of some software creators: “That user isn’t smart enough to use my software!” In the usability field, we see this kind of thing as a problem of the design of the technology, not of the users.

From this viewpoint, the misuse only indicates that there is a usability problem in the written language.

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From EducationGuardian.co.uk:

“Exams chiefs have unveiled plans to stop pupils getting good GCSE grades if they use apostrophes incorrectly or put commas in the wrong place.”

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Columnist Beth Quinn offers an argument against ordering engraved items from Coldwater Creek:

“The whole dreadful situation began when my husband was given a planter with our name engraved on it. ”The Quinn’s” it said – and I can just hear my Apostrophe Posse gasp.”

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The San Jose Mercury News reported on apostrophe abuse happening at Stanford University. After a photo featuring a plaque was published in the paper recently, readers angrily pointed out the lack of proofreaders resulted in the creation of a plaque that reads “the Stanford’s purchased `the farm’ from the Gordon’s in 1876.”

(Thanks, Hope!)

There seems to be an alternate version of the article that reads “proof readers” in the first sentence rather than “proofreaders”.

Ariana Huffington has a rant today in the Huffington Post about the misuse of the apostrophe.

I’m pretty sure this exact piece appeared in Salon a few years ago.

“Other newspapers, based on a tiny and unscientific sample, are divided about when to use the punctuation. The consensus is that apostrophes everywhere look funny — but they need to be there.”

(Link)

Tetherd Cow featuring an errant apostrophe for the holiday season.

Well that certainly looks odd! Technically it should be “dos and don’ts”; some say that you should use apostrophes when marking the plural of words if they are treated as words.
Opinions here and here.

…there’s even more confusion with holidays like Presidents’ Day and Mother’s Day, not to mention terms like drivers’ license.

So why can’t anyone agree?