I really thought I had gotten through to people on this, but apparently, everyone's forgotten, so I have to use today's blog post to remind you all of something that is vitally important to the safety, health, and well-being of every person in the English-speaking world: APOSTROPHES DO NOT INDICATE A PLURAL.

Whew. I had to yell it. It's kind of an emergency.

I saw a sign on someone's house the other day that was this large wooden thingamajig that read, "The Smith's live here." Now, the only way that could possibly be grammatically correct would be if the store Smith's lived there, but then it would be, "The Smith's lives here." And it would have to be a much larger house, because I've been to Smith's, and there's no way that house could contain it.

Anyway, why would someone spend that much money on a sign that is grammatically incorrect? Why? I think this may be part of a larger conspiracy to drive me completely insane.

So, here we go again: If you are saying there is more than one of something, just use the "s." If you are saying something belongs to someone, or saying the word + "is," use "'s." If you are using the word "its," there is no apostrophe unless you are using the contraction for "it is," which is "it's." 

I'm not confident that I got all of those quotation marks right. It's 5:30 a.m., and my eyeballs are killing me. I had to do it, though. We've got to get the word out before my brain explodes.

Share it with your friends. Say no to improper apostrophe usage.