Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss Read Free Book Online Page B

Library, it’s services and catalogues” (reader induction pamphlet at British Library)
     
    Plain illiteracy:
    “ . . . giving the full name and title of the person who’s details are given in Section 02” (on UK passport application form)
    Make our customer’s live’s easier (Abbey National advertisement)
    Gateaux’s (evidently never spelled any other way)
    Your 21 today! (on birthday card)
     
    Commas instead of apostrophes:
    Antique,s (on A120 near Colchester)
    apples,s
    orange,s
    grape,s (all thankfully on the same stall)
     
    Signs that have given up trying:
    Reader offer
    Author photograph
    Customer toilet
     
    This is a mere sample of the total I received. I heard from people whose work colleagues used commas instead of apostrophes; from someone rather thoughtfully recommending a restaurant called l’Apostrophe in Reims (address on request); and from a Somerset man who had cringed regularly at a sign on a market garden until he discovered that its proprietor’s name was – you couldn’t make it up – R. Carrott. This explained why the sign said “Carrott’s” at the top, you see, but then listed other vegetables and fruits spelled and punctuated perfectly correctly.

    Up to now, we have looked at the right and wrong uses of the apostrophe, and I have felt on pretty safe ground. All this is about to change, however, because there are areas of apostrophe use that are not so simple, and we must now follow the apostrophe as it flits innocently into murky tunnels ofstyle, usage and (oh no!) acceptable exception. Take the possessive of proper names ending in “s” – such as my own. Is this properly “Lynne Truss’ book” or “Lynne Truss’s book”? One correspondent (whose name I have changed) wrote with a tone of impatience: “From an early age I knew that if I wanted to write Philippa Jones’ book I did NOT WRITE Philippa Jones’s book with a second ‘s’. I see this error often even on a school minibus: St James’s School. Perhaps the rules have changed or the teachers just do not know nowadays.”
    Sadly, this correspondent has been caught in the embarrassing position of barking up two wrong trees at the same time; but only because tastes have changed in the matter. Current guides to punctuation (including that ultimate authority, Fowler’s Modern English Usage ) state that with modern names ending in “s” (including biblical names, and any foreign name with an unpronounced final “s”), the “s” is required after the apostrophe:
Keats’s poems
    Philippa Jones’s book
    St Jame’s Square
    Alexander Dumas’s The Three Musketeers
    With names from the ancient world, it is not:
Archimedes’ screw
    Achilles’ heel
    If the name ends in an “iz” sound, an exception is made:
Bridges’ score
    Moses’ tablets
    And an exception is always made for Jesus:
Jesus’ disciples
    However, these are matters of style and preference that are definitely not set in stone, and it’s a good idea not to get fixated about them. Bill Walsh’s charmingly titled book Lapsing into a Comma (Walsh is a copy desk chief at The Washington Post ) explains that while many American newspapers prefer“Connors’ forehand”, his own preference is for “Connors’s forehand” – “and I’m happy to be working for a newspaper that feels the same way I do”. Consulting a dozen or so recently published punctuation guides, I can report that they contain minor disagreements on virtually all aspects of the above and that their only genuine consistency is in using Keats’s poems as the prime example. Strange, but true. They just can’t leave Keats alone. “It is Keats’ poems (NOT Keats’s ),” they thunder. Or alternatively: “It is Keats’s poems (NOT Keats’ ).” Well, poor old Keats, you can’t help thinking. No wonder he developed that cough.
    Having said that there are no absolute rights and wrongs in this matter, however, when many people wrote to ask why St Thomas’ Hospital in London