Kirk Mahoney . com

I saw this today in an online news article about the recent launch of the Sprint XOHM service in Baltimore, Maryland.

Problem:
An apostrophe is missing.

Explanation:
The complete sentence was (quote) You can attach one of four service plans to your XOHM devices: The “home” plan works with the home modem, for $35 a month (its on sale through December 31st for $25), the “On the go” plan is for the ExpressCard, at $45 a month ($30 on sale.), and “Pick 2″ lets you get two devices (a modem and a card, for instance) for $65 a month ($50 on sale). (unquote).

The word “its” — spelled I-T-S — is a possessive pronoun.

The article writer is trying to say that the home-plan service is on sale through December 31, 2008, with “it” substituting for the name of this service.

In other words, the expression should have been written with the contraction form of “it is” in (quote) “… it is on sale …” (unquote).

Solution:
“… it’s on sale …”

I saw this at Freetricity.com.

Problem:
An apostrophe appears where it should not.

Explanation:
(Quote) “The reason’s why are threefold:” (unquote) — with an apostrophe between the noun “reason” and the letter “s” — appeared on a Freetricity.com Web page about the E2D Windmaster and the three reasons that less than 3% of U.S. homes have a renewable energy-source product.

An apostrophe has very limited use in the formation of a plural noun. Here are the situations:

1. to form plurals of lower-case letters;
2. to form groups of years;
3. to form plurals of numbers;
4. to form plurals of symbols;
5. to form plurals of some short words.

However, most authorities recommend omission of the apostrophe for situations 2 through 4, given that there is no possibility of misreading when the apostrophe is omitted.

Given that the noun “reason” does not match any of these five situations, we have the solution.

Solution:
“The reasons why are threefold:”

I saw this on a bottle of body wash.

Problem:
A possessive apostrophe is missing.

Explanation:
The noun “nature” is rarely pluralized, given its dominant definitions.

One definition for which pluralization makes sense is the fundamental disposition or temperament of a person.

However, that particular definition would be inconsistent with body wash.

Instead, the “Natures Family” brand alludes to the botanical elements in the body wash.

Given that no trademark symbol appeared adjacent to the “Natures Family” brand, which would have implied that the lack of punctuation was intentional, I have to conclude that the omission of a possessive apostrophe was an error.

Solution:
“Nature’s Family”

My wife got this in an email message recently.

Problem:
The word “you’re” is incorrect here.

Explanation:
The complete sentence in the message was (quote) “Please contact me and if you’re school is near by, I may be able to deliver them to you.” (unquote).

The word “you’re” — spelled Y-O-U-APOSTROPHE-R-E — is a contraction of (quote) “you are” (unquote).

Clearly, the message writer did not intend to say (quote) “… and if you are school is near by, …” (unquote); that would be nonsensical.

Instead, the writer was referring to the reader’s school, so he should have used the possessive pronoun “your” — spelled Y-O-U-R.

I believe that the common English blunder of confusing the contraction “you’re” with the possessive pronoun “your” is due to the fact that many American English speakers mistakenly pronounce these two words in the same way.

Solution:
“… and if your school is near by, …”

I have repeatedly heard this in an ExxonMobil TV commercial running during the 2008 Olympics coverage.

Problem:
The adjective does not belong in the sentence.

Explanation:
The word “own” has two meanings as an adjective.

The first definition of “own” is pertaining to itself or oneself, and the adjective “own” in this usage typically follows a possessive — such as “their” — to highlight the sense of ownership of that possessive.

This relates to an essentially reflexive use of “own”, as in (quote) “They earned their own money.” (unquote).

The second use of “own” is as an intensifier to emphasize that the subject is the one and only actor, and the adjective “own” in this usage always follows a possessive.

This relates to an essentially intensifying use of “own”, as in (quote) “They insisted on being their own contractors.” (unquote).

Unfortunately, the sentence (quote) “Malaria has touched their own lives.” (unquote) calls for the adjective “own” in neither of these ways.

• It does NOT match the first usage because malaria is not acting reflexively in the sentence.
• It does NOT match the second usage because “own” does not emphasize in the sentence that the subject is the one and only agent of the “touched” action.

I fear that this form of misuse of “own” is a side effect of the increasing misuse of reflexive pronouns, as in (quote) “I am fine. And yourself (sic)?” (unquote), and as in (quote) “Please send it to Jim and myself.” (unquote).

Solution:
“Malaria has touched their lives.”

I saw this yesterday in a real-estate advertisement.

Problem:
“HER’S” is a nonsense word.

Explanation:
The pronoun “her” is:

• the objective case of the pronoun “she” (e.g., “Give this green handbag to her.”);
• the possessive case of the pronoun “she” used as an attributive adjective (e.g., “Her handbag is the green one.”);
• the dative case of the pronoun “she” (e.g., “I gave her the green handbag.”).

The pronoun “hers” is a a form of the possessive case of the pronoun “she” used as a predicate adjective (e.g., “The green handbag is hers.”).

In contrast, “her’s” is a nonsense word.

The woman who wrote the real-estate ad meant to say that the walk-in closet was suitable for a man and a woman simultaneously, and she could have used “her” or “hers”:

• Using “HIS-&-HER” would have meant that she wanted to say that the walk-in closet would be equally possessed by the man and woman.
• Using “HIS-&-HERS” would have meant that she wanted to say that the walk-in closet had a “his” area and a “hers” area.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following words (with the quotation marks to avoid modified forms) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “hers” — 23,800,000 matches
• “her’s” — 1,290,000 matches

Although some of the “hers” matches related to acronyms (e.g., for Higher Education Resource Services), this still tells me that Web authors have written the word correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of some 18.4:1, which is okay, but the fact that the Web contains more than one million instances of “her’s” is disappointing.

Solutions:
“HIS-&-HER WALK-IN CLOSET”
or
“HIS-&-HERS WALK-IN CLOSET”

This post is not about a problem, explanation, and solution.

Instead, it’s about an interesting word whose use is designated as Chiefly Southern Louisiana and Southeast Texas.

I first saw this word when I moved to Houston, Texas. It was on the sign of a popular restaurant and was written with an apostrophe and ’s’ as “Lagniappe’s”.

I don’t know whether this apostrophe-’s’ form on the sign was meant to be a possessive or was supposed to be a plural noun but was a blunder by a sign maker who is part of the crowd of sign makers who insert apostrophes where they don’t belong.

Leaving aside the possessive-apostrophe/plural issue and focusing on the singular noun, a “lagniappe” is something that is added to a purchase as a gift by a merchant, to say “Thank you!” for doing business with the merchant.

A commercial, mass-marketing version of a “lagniappe” could be a cosmetics bag given with a purchase of Lancôme perfume. However, the noun “lagniappe” is traditionally reserved for what an individual merchant adds, such as a small bag of fertilizer when the customer buys several flower bulbs.

The noun originally was “yapa” — Quechuan for that which is added.

Spanish speakers in Mexico turned this into “la ñapa”.

I don’t know where the French speakers from Louisiana first heard “la ñapa” and converted it into the French spelling — “lagniappe” — for the same pronunciation.

But I imagine that the greater Houston area could have been that location, given its mingling of people from Mexico and people from New Orleans and other French-speaking parts of southern Louisiana.

So there you have it: an American English word tied to Houston at the intersection of Spanish and French speakers.

I got this in an email message from Skype a couple of days ago.

Problem:
A contraction-forming apostrophe appears where it should not.

Explanation:
The word “it’s” is a contraction of “it is”; the apostrophe signifies the dropping of a letter (the “i” in “is”).

The required word is “its” (not “it’s”) because “its” is the possessive form of “it” (which refers to “Skype”).

Confusing “it’s” and “its” is a common English blunder.

A simple way to remember that “its” is the possessive form of “it” — a third-person pronoun — is to recognize that “his” is the possessive form of “he” — another third-person pronoun — and that neither “his” nor “its” has a possessive apostrophe.

Solution:
“Skype — social networking at its best”

I saw this yesterday on a San Quentin State Prison sign shown during an MSNBC television program.

Problem:
A possessive apostrophe appears where it should not.

Explanation:
“APPEAL’S” of what?

The apostrophe in “APPEAL’S” should not be there.

The sign maker was trying to refer to the plural of the noun “APPEAL”.

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:
“INVESTIGATIVE SERVICES UNIT & APPEALS”

I saw this at the end of a sentence on a Tide laundry-detergent bottle.

Problem:
This phrase makes no sense.

Explanation:
“Ultra Tide Coldwater is specially designed to deeply clean in the care of cold water.” is the full sentence at the top of the label on the back of a “2X Ultra Tide for Coldwater” bottle that I have in my laundry room.

Huh?

“The care of cold water” is the same as “cold water’s care”, just as “the daughter of Jim” is the same as “Jim’s daughter”.

Substituting, we get “Ultra Tide Coldwater is specially designed to deeply clean in cold water’s care.”

Huh (again)?

It seems that the writing of this label was outsourced to a non-native speaker of English who might have written the label in his language first and then translated it literally to English.

Squinting my eyes while reading the label again and wondering what the writer wanted to say, I got “Ultra Tide Coldwater is specially designed to deeply clean with cold water.”

Solution:
“… with cold water.”