Leah S. submitted this lovely bulletin:
This is clipped from today’s Knitting Daily email from Interweave Press. Not only do we have a misplaced apostrophe, but there’s also clear evidence of lazy or non-existent proofing in the next bullet point.
I don’t know… I think some people just really think you use an apostrophe after every instance of an abbreviation. I was thinking about that this morning, while contemplating adding “Mini Moo’s” to my coffee…
I agree with you on the apostrophe theory, but I’m not sure that is what’s at work in the “photo’s” instance. See, I don’t think the word “photo” is seen by most of the population as an abbreviation, even though it stems from the word “photograph”; in common usage, it’s a complete word all by itself. In this case, I think the issue is probably a problem of the writer not understanding that it’s perfectly acceptable to just add an ‘s’ to make the plural form of a noun that ends with a vowel. There’s something about the oddity of a noun that ends with a vowel that strikes fear into the hearts of people, and causes them to arm themselves with an apostrophe before adding that ‘s’. How many instances have you seen of things like “patio’s”, “rabbi’s”, “umbrella’s” etc.? I think it’s that vowel ending that really throws people off. What do you think? Am I onto something here?
(Oops, I meant “abbreviation theory” at the beginning there…I should proofread before posting!)
Unfortunately, I think you’re probably exactly right, Kacia. It *does* happen with abbreviations too, though. “Moo’s,” my example, isn’t an abbreviation either, so I obviously wasn’t thinking that through when I wrote this post! 🙂