Apostrophe 101

Nothing irks me more than the incorrect use of an apostrophe. My blood boils when I scroll through my Facebook newsfeed and notice a peer that graduated with me has a status update with an out of place apostrophe.

It seems that the trend is to overuse the apostrophe because people think pluralizing a word automatically means an apostrophe must be present. The apostrophe is like the Kim Kardashian of punctuation, overused and underrated! This Instagram post causes me as much anger as a Kim K selfie.

There is a page on Facebook that I admit, I like, but it bothers me every time it appears in my newsfeed because not only does it misuse the apostrophe once, in the page name, it misuses it in a different way in the cover photo.

  CORRECT:

Child of the ’80s

WRONG:

Child of the 80’s

Child of the 80s

In this example, the apostrophe is used as a contraction i.e. it replaces something that was removed from its place. Basically, the apostrophe replaces “19” in “1980”.

Here is an email I received many years ago from someone that referred a few clients to me. I think she is in rehab now for apostrophe addiction, this is from an actual email she sent me a while back.

Hi Jacqui –

What promo’s and giveaway’s can we do for our various client’s? We should be sending email’s to them with this info.

Thank’s (Okay, this one is an exaggeration)

Alyssa (Not her real name)

As a reminder,