Grammar and punctuation fundamentalists (the Basterds!) will almost certainly have read Lynn Truss’ (or should 
that be Truss’s… discuss…) seminal book on why punctuation is so important.
The title highlights the difference adding simple punctuation makes to a term said of a Giant Panda, that it “eats shoots & leaves”. Add a comma after the first word, and the same bear becomes a postprandial, gun-toting evacuee.
Misuse of most punctuation doesn’t have quite the same dramatic effect, but it may signal (to some people, at least) a lack of attention to detail, therefore invites ridicule. None more so than using the prolific Grocer’s Apostrophe.
Kingsley Amis, on being challenged to produce a sentence whose meaning depended on a possessive apostrophe, came up with:
- Those things over there are my husband’s.
(Those things over there belong to my husband.) - Those things over there are my husbands’.
(Those things over there belong to several husbands of mine.) - Those things over there are my husbands.
(I’m married to those men over there.)
There’s a simple rule when wondering whether you need to add an apostrophe or not – if in any doubt, just leave it out. Jess Meats circulated a now-dead website a while ago – www.canipluralizethatwithanapostrophe.com. Visiting the site displayed a blank page carrying just the word NO. In 96pt Arial Bold.
If you’re not really sure of the rules or if you find you forget them a bit too easily, check out The Oatmeal’s brilliant graphical guide for when to – and perhaps more importantly, when not to – use an apostrophe. There are other wordsmithery wonders too – how to use a semicolon, some words you need to stop misspelling, who vs whom and more. Genius. And really, really funny too.
