apostrophe catastrophe

Over the last couple of year's American's have been increasingly misusing apostrophe's and its really starting to get on my nerve's. Im amazed that a simple punctuation mark could prove to be so difficult to use correctly, but its obviously a problem for many American's. And its not a problem that is limited to folk's with lesser amount's of education, its a problem that appear's regularly in large newspaper's and magazine's, as well as television show's on major network's. Even presumably well-educated writer's manifest this lack of understanding of how to use apostrophe's, so Im going to explain it in order to help eradicate these literacy issue's once and for all.

If you are writing about multiple thing's, you should never use apostrophe's to indicate plural's. Any student's that went to American school's learned from their English teacher's that apostrophe's are not used to indicate plural's or multiple's of thing's, they are used to indicate possessive's or contraction's. If you use apostrophe's to indicate multiple's of thing's, it makes your writing really difficult to read. Apostrophe's are also used to indicate missing letter's in contraction's, as in "isnt" or "cant" or "wouldnt."

Remember a few week's ago when Barack Obamas comment that American's should learn second language's was fussed over by John McCains campaign staffer's? Id be thrilled just to see American's learn their own language! So please, stop abusing apostrophe's. Its not that difficult to use them correctly, and Im sure that if youd like to be seen as serious writer's and thinker's that you dont want English speaker's around the world to conclude that all American's are illiterate bumpkin's. Thats fairly easy to understand, isnt it?


Remember the sagacious advice of one of Americas most famous philosopher's: "Get a brain moran's."