Kirk Mahoney . com

I saw this last Sunday on a sign.

Problem:
A possessive apostrophe is missing.

Explanation:
I saw a magnetic sign attached to a pickup truck last Sunday.

The sign’s title was (quote) “Mobile Mikes Tile Service” (unquote), with no apostrophe anywhere, and there was contact and other information beneath the title.

Nothing on the sign implied that there was more than one person named Mike, so I assume that there is just one “Mike” who runs the business.

Oddly, although many sign makers make the mistake of inserting an apostrophe where it does not belong, this sign’s maker omitted an apostrophe where it did belong.

Solution:
“Mobile Mike’s Tile Service”

I saw this a week ago on a pickup truck.

Problem:
A possessive apostrophe appeared where it should not.

Explanation:
(Quote) “Drywall Finisher’s” (unquote), with an apostrophe before the letter “s”, was the title on a magnetic sign attached to the side of a pickup truck that I saw last week.

The contractor’s telephone number and some other information appeared beneath the title.

Because the APOSTROPHE-S made the word “Finisher” a possessive, I had to wonder what was being possessed.

But I was left hanging.

The apostrophe in “Finisher’s” should not have been there.

The sign maker was trying to pluralize the noun “Finisher”.

He or she instead made the sign maker’s common blunder of inserting a possessive apostrophe when pluralizing a noun.

Maybe sign makers just love to create apostrophes?

Solution:
“Drywall Finishers”

I hear and see a lot of pluralization of company names.

Here are some examples.

Many people pluralize J.D. Power and Associates as “J.D. Powers” — as in (quote) “They won the J.D. Powers award three times.” (unquote).

Many people pluralize Barnes & Noble as “Barnes & Nobles” — as in (quote) “Did you see that book at Barnes & Nobles?” (unquote).

Many people pluralize Kroger as “Krogers” — as in (quote) “I am going to Krogers. Do you need anything?” (unquote).

And what sounds sometimes like a possessive-apostrophe-”s” is often written simply with an “s”, so I know that not everyone is trying to make the name into a possessive.

I heard this yesterday morning on National Public Radio.

Problem:
The possessive form was wrong.

Explanation:
An NPR reporter had recorded someone saying to a group of people (quote) “I went through your guys’s notes.” (unquote).

Without any more context to help you, you can see that there are two possible interpretations for this statement:

1. The speaker was saying that he had read the notes of the guys who belonged to or were associated with his listeners.
2. The speaker was saying that he had read the notes that belonged to his listeners.

If the full context were such that interpretation #1 were correct, then the solution would be to remove the final “s” from “guys’s” in the statement.

However, the full context of the recording was someone speaking directly to a group and not referring to anyone else.

So interpretation #2 is the correct one.

One can then almost see the train of thought of the speaker when he started to say (quote) “I went through your guys’s notes.” (unquote).

Step 1: The speaker usually says “you guys” instead of “you” for the plural, second-person pronoun.

Step 2: Starting to make a possessive out of “you guys”, the speaker changed “you” to “yours”.

Step 3: Realizing that “your guys” sounded as if he were referring to people other than his listeners, the speaker added the possessive apostrophe-”s” to “guys” to create “your guys’s”.

Now here is the sad part about this NPR report: The man who was recorded saying (quote) “I went through your guys’s notes.” (unquote) was directly involved in a job-interviewing activity.

Ouch!

Solution:
“I went through your notes.”

A few years ago I noticed something odd about the television ads, billboards, and signs for the Church’s Chicken restaurant chain.

The logo read “Churchs Chicken” without the required possessive apostrophe between the name “Church” and the letter “s”.

Here is an example of the apostrophe-less logo used by Church’s Chicken up until just a few years ago:

The absence of the apostrophe bugged me but also made me wonder whether the company was omitting the apostrophe for some sort of branding or legal reason.

For example, many trademark experts recommend against using possessives in brand names — and definitely against using a brand name (such as “Kodak”) as a possessive noun (such as “Kodak’s”).

Well the folks at Church’s Chicken apparently realized that the apostrophe-less logo was actually a mistake.

For example, here is an older logo that I found for Church’s Chicken:

As you can see, the older logo did have the apostrophe.

And here is how the Church’s Chicken logo appears at this writing — again with the possessive apostrophe:

So the restaurant chain had the possessive apostrophe, dropped it (for who knows why), and re-added it.

Thank you, Church’s Chicken, for saving the apostrophe!

I heard this the other day, and it struck me as odd — mostly because there is a bad habit among many American children to say “mines” instead of “mine”.

Problem:
A pronoun may not be converted into a possessive simply by adding apostrophe-”s”.

Explanation:
The archaic use of the word “mine” as a pronoun is as a substitute for “my” — as in (quote) “Mine eyes have seen the glory …” (unquote).

But the word “mine” as a pronoun has two modern meanings:

1. a predicate-adjective form of the possessive case of the pronoun “I”, as in (quote) “The green car is mine.” (unquote);
2. something belonging to me, as in (quote) “Mine is the purple towel.” (unquote).

I am unsure whether the “mine” in (quote) “a student of mine’s mother” (unquote) more closely follows definition #1 or definition #2.

Concentrating on the first part of the phrase, one could argue that the “mine” in (quote) “a student of mine” (unquote) follows definition #1 because one could say (quote) “The student is mine.” (unquote).

Or one could argue that the “mine” in (quote) “a student of mine” (unquote) follows definition #2 because one could say (quote) “Mine is the student.” (unquote).

No matter which argument makes more sense to you, it is clear that “mine” in (quote) “a student of mine’s mother” (unquote) is a pronoun.

And a pronoun may not be converted into a possessive simply by adding apostrophe-”s”, so the phrase must be rewritten.

Solution:
“the mother of one of my students”
OR
“one of my students’ mothers”

I saw this yesterday in an email message.

Problem:
An apostrophe is missing.

Explanations:
The email message was talking about social-work efforts, and (quote) “Childrens Protective Service” (unquote) — with “Childrens” spelled C-H-I-L-D-R-E-N — was the title of one of the sections in the message.

I believe that the absence of a required possessive apostrophe in “Childrens” can be attributable to:

• A typographical error;
• Ignorance about possessive apostrophes.

Given how often I see the apostrophe-free “Mens” and “Womens” in department stores, I doubt that “A typographical error” applies to this situation.

That leaves us with “Ignorance about possessive apostrophes”.

I believe that this ignorance is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis.

It is simpler to write possessive words without apostrophes than to write them with apostrophes.

Solution:
“Children’s Protective Service”

My wife saw this on Amazon.com.

Problem:
The reflexive pronoun is triply misspelled.

Explanation:
My wife was researching a carpentry tool on Amazon.com.

She was reading comments from those who had bought the tool when she came across (quote) “The tool it’s self seems …” (unquote).

The obvious solution is to replace I-T-APOSTROPHE-S-SPACE-S-E-L-F with the reflexive pronoun “itself” — spelled I-T-S-E-L-F.

What fascinates me is how the commenter managed to make three spelling mistakes in the process of misspelling this pronoun.

1. Mistake #1 was to assume that reflexive pronouns are always formed by combining a possessive pronoun with the word “self”.
2. Mistake #2 was to assume that a space should appear between such a possessive pronoun and the word “self”.
3. Mistake #3 was to misspell the possessive pronoun “its” as I-T-APOSTROPHE-S.

Let us discuss these three mistakes in reverse order.

If we undo mistake #3, then we get “its self” — spelled I-T-S-SPACE-S-E-L-F.

If we undo mistake #2, then we get “itsself” — spelled I-T-S-S-E-L-F.

If we undo mistake #1, then we get “itself” — spelled I-T-S-E-L-F.

Solution:
“The tool itself seems …”

I saw this yesterday in a company’s announcement about buying another company.

Problem:
The hyphen does not belong in this phrase.

Explanation:
One company was announcing the pending purchase of another company.

The purchase required approvals by various U.S. federal agencies.

The buyer wanted investors and employees to know that it was legally bound to continue to operate distinctly from the other company until all of those approvals had been secured.

The complete sentence announcing this legal constraint was along the lines of (quote) “We will continue to operate as a separate business at arm’s-length from [the company that we are buying].” (unquote).

The problem with this sentence is that the hyphen does not belong.

The possessive “arm’s” is modifying the noun “length”, but together they are not modifying anything else, so no hyphen should appear between “arm’s” and “length”.

In contrast, a hyphen does belong in a phrase such as (quote) “arm’s-length transaction” (unquote).

Solution:
“… separate business at arm’s length from …”

I saw this in a press release today.

Problem:
A possessive apostrophe is missing.

Explanation:
The press release was about AT&T U-verse service in Nashville, Tennessee.

The full sentence was (quote) “AT&T has begun pulling permits in Nashville to roll out its new TV service, the areas first formidable competition for Comcast cable and the satellite TV companies that operate here.” (unquote).

A possessive apostrophe is missing in the word “area”.

I believe that the number of people who write possessive nouns simply by adding the letter “s” is increasing.

I believe that this increasingly common mistake is due to ignorance and to the growing number of people who use text messaging, for which punctuation beyond a comma, period, exclamation mark, or question mark is often difficult.

And I believe that this mistake is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis. It is simpler to omit the possessive apostrophe than to include it.

Solution:
“… the area’s first formidable competition …”