Ginny Schmidt

I used to be an editor. I was paid to correct people’s writing, from simple typographical errors, to bad grammar, inappropriate usage, and confusing syntax. My greatest joy was taking a double-spaced manuscript and marking it up with a red pen until it looked like it had bled to death. Why did I enjoy that so much? Because I believe that the integrity of any written material can be seriously called into question by even one careless mistake. People who are wonderfully creative writers are more concerned (and rightly so, IMHO) with ideas and content than the nit-picky editorial details. It was a team effort … someone else came up with the impressive prose, and I got to clean it up so that, when it was printed, it would properly serve its intended purpose.

That is no longer my job, but I still cringe over certain common mistakes. I know that I should not care so much any more, and the last thing I would ever do is to single out individuals and tell them that I think they are doing something wrong. First of all, we are not writing here on redbubble for publication or for a good grade on a final exam. We are communicating from our hearts, and even what I would consider glaring errors in some people’s poetry submissions, I would not want to change because, in many cases, the “mistakes” add to the charm of the piece and, in some cases, may not be mistakes at all, but calculated for the effect. There are times, when our writing is intended to be casual, that even I admit to deliberately letting my grammar, usage, and punctuation lapse into the comfortable patterns of everyday speech. I CAN loosen up … live and let live.

But.

There is one thing that too many people consistently do that is just wrong, wrong, wrong, and I finally had to get it off my chest: YOU DO NOT NEED TO INSERT AN APOSTROPHE BEFORE THE LETTER “S” TO MAKE SOMETHING PLURAL. My subject line was taken from a handwritten sign I saw in someone’s front yard; I laughed and drove on, but I don’t think that the situation is all that funny, considering the rapidly growing number of people who would see nothing wrong with it.

Why on earth did this practice suddenly become so prevalent, perpetrated even by intelligent people, many of whom are much better educated than I am? An apostrophe before the letter “s” shows possession … except, of course, in the possessive pronoun, “its,” because an apostrophe there indicates a verbal contraction. However, pretty much any noun you can think of that ends in a consonant or a consonant sound (such as “culture”), to make it plural, all you have to do is stick the “s” on the end and, bingo, you’ve got more than one! A word ending in a “y” sound, such as “baby,” you make plural by changing the “y” to “ie,” and then adding the “s”; and, again, no apostrophe is required.

My profoundest apologies to anyone offended by this little rant. I am very sorry to have brought it up (but I am going to post it, anyway). I really am trying hard to chill out more and not grind my teeth over things like this. The language is slowly going to ruin, I can’t stop it, and I have no business getting so upset about it. It probably won’t kill anybody. I am, by the way, almost completely cured of wanting to scream when someone uses a nominative case pronoun with a preposition (most commonly in a case such as “this is just between him and I”), when the objective case pronoun is called for. This usage has so completely taken over, that if I did not try to ignore it, I would go insane. There are many so much more important issues in the world to get upset about, that I recognize the absurdity of wasting so much emotional energy on something I can’t do anything about, except for voicing my opinion once in a while. It’s just that old habits die hard. I bite my tongue a lot.

I’m done now. Thanks for putting up with me.