Kirk Mahoney . com

I saw this on the back of a delivery van two days ago.

Problem:
The sign writer converted a singular noun into a possessive instead of into a plural noun.

Explanation:
Book authors such as Lynne Truss are bang on when they say that sign writers have a propensity to put apostrophes where they do not belong.

The sign writer for the delivery van is guilty of this offense.

The sign writer either should have left the noun in singular form (”DRIVER”) or should have used the plural form (”DRIVERS”).

The writer probably wanted to be somewhat generic — and not pick on the driver of the van to which the sign is attached — and use the plural form of “DRIVER”.

One humorous aside: There was no telephone number to call for reporting a lack of courtesy!

Solution:
“REPORT DISCOURTEOUS DRIVERS TO”

I often hear this, although I certainly can’t hear the possessive apostrophe.

Problem:
These are mispronunciations of a popular February holiday, and one is missing the required possessive apostrophe.

Explanation:
The person whose day is celebrated on February 14 is St. Valentine.

So the proper name of the holiday is “St. Valentine’s Day” or more simply “Valentine’s Day” — not “Valentimes Day” or “Valentime’s Day” or even “Valentines Day”.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following phrases (with the quotation marks) and got the indicated numbers of matches:

• “Valentimes Day” — 18,800 matches
• “Valentime’s Day” — 7,570 matches
• “Valentines Day” — 1,560,000 matches
• “Valentine’s Day” — 10,800,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the phrase correctly by a ratio of 6.8:1, which is not good!

I believe that the use of “Valentimes” or “Valentime’s” instead of “Valentine’s” is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis. It is simpler to pronounce the “m” sound in “Valentimes” or “Valentime’s” than to pronounce the “n” sound in “Valentines” or “Valentine’s”.

I believe that the omission of the possessive apostrophe in the otherwise-correct “Valentines Day” is also consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis. It is simpler to omit the apostrophe than to include it, and this holiday is only one of many examples in which writers omit required possessive apostrophes.

Solution:
“Valentine’s Day”

I heard this on a BET television program.

Problem:
Many wonder whether “him” or “his” is correct in sentences such as this one.

Explanation:
The present participial phrase “singing with the choir” acts as an adjective to modify “him” in “I’m worried about him singing with the choir.” To prove this, we can remove the participial phrase and retain the sense of the sentence: “I’m worried about him.”

In contrast, if we replace “him” with “his” in the sentence, then “singing with the choir” may not be removed. That is, “I’m worried about his.” makes no sense; the possessive pronoun “his” requires the gerund phrase “singing with the choir” or another object.

Summarizing,

• “him” makes “singing with the choir” act as a present participial phrase;
• “his” makes “singing with the choir” act as a gerund phrase.

In other words, “him” and “his” are equally correct but have different effects.

Putting this summary in non-grammatical terms, we get the solution.

Solution:
Use “him” when you want to focus the attention on the person. Use “his” when you want to focus the attention on the action performed by the person.

I heard someone say this recently.

Problem:
The number of the possessive pronoun does not match the number of the subject.

Explanation:
“Each of us” is singular (the speaker is considering “us” one at a time), so the possessive pronoun in front of “own style” should be singular.

The possessive pronoun “our” is plural and therefore does not match the number of the subject (”Each of us”).

I believe that the speaker of the statement, in ignoring the number of “Each of us” (singular) in favor of the number of “us” (plural), was distracted by the fact that “us” and “our” usually go together (are both first-person plural pronouns) and the proximity of “us” to the possessive pronoun in the statement.

“Each of us has their own style.” would be incorrect, too, because “their” is plural and also is inconsistent with the singularity of “Each of us” (the subject of the sentence).

Given that the statement refers to a group of people, the correct possessive pronouns would be the singular ones “his” and/or “her”. The mental impediment of combining “us” with “his” or “her” in a statement seems to be that “us” is in the first person whereas “his” and “her” are in the third person. One must appreciate that “Each of” in front of “us” forces the listener to consider the third-person individuals in the group.

Solutions:
“Each of us has his own style.” — for an all-male group
“Each of us has her own style.” — for an all-female group
“Each of us has his or her own style.” — for a mixed group

I often hear people say this.

Problems:
1. A possessive apostrophe-S (’s) is missing.
2. The noun makes much more sense in singular form.

Explanation:
Even in speech, one can hear when a possessive apostrophe-S is missing.

The English noun “sake” (not the Japanese noun) means interest, benefit, advantage, motive, purpose or cause. For example, “for the sake of Jim” means for the benefit of Jim.

We can rewrite “for the sake of Jim” (”for the benefit of Jim”) as “for Jim’s sake” (”for Jim’s benefit”). It doesn’t make a lot of sense to say “for Jim’s sakes” (plural). That would be analogous to saying “for Jim’s benefits”, which most people would not say because one vague, all-encompassing benefit is enough!

Apparently, the original expression was “Oh, for God’s sake!” This expression got softened to “Oh, for Heaven’s sake!”, which got converted into the problematic expression.

I believe that “Oh, for Heaven sakes” supports my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis. It’s simpler to say “Oh, for Heaven sakes” than to say “Oh, for Heaven’s sake”; saying the latter requires one to pause between “Heaven’s” and “sake” so that the listener hears the two S sounds.

Letting the expression devolve further, we get the original, problematic expression: “Oh, for Heaven sakes!” It’s as if the speaker is indicating that he knows that an S sound belongs somewhere, so he puts it at the end of the expression, where it sounds as if it might belong.

Solution:
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake!”

I have wondered for years about which of these is the correct form.

Problem:
The fifty state governments in the USA are inconsistent in the way that they refer to licenses issued to drivers.

Explanation:
I searched the Web for the form used by each of the fifty state governments.

Some state government had two official ways to refer to these licenses. Most state governments had only one way. No state government used “Drivers License” (plural, with no possessive apostrophe).

Here are the names of the states whose governments use one or more of the three forms on their own websites:

• “Driver License” (35 states):  Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana (also in “Driver’s License” list), Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania (also in “Driver’s License” list), South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin
• “Driver’s License” (16 states):  Arkansas, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana (also in “Driver License” list), Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Pennsylvania (also in “Driver License” list), Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming
• “Drivers’ License” (1 state):  Delaware

Ignoring the two “undecided” states (Indiana and Pennsylvania), we see that “Driver License” is favored by a ratio of more than 2.35 to 1 over “Driver’s License” (thirty-three states vs. fourteen states).

Solution:
I doubt that the fifty state governments ever will agree on a single form for referring to licenses that they issue to drivers. The best for which we can hope is that any given state government with multiple ways will settle on a single form and that Delaware will come to its senses about “Drivers’ License”.

I saw this on a luggage tag at O’Hare airport.

Problem:
An apostrophe appears where it should not.

Explanation:
An apostrophe should not be used to pluralize a family name. The brightly colored luggage tag was meant to call the reader’s attention to the fact that the luggage belonged to the Nelson family.

Use of the definite article on the luggage tag told me that the family name was Nelson.

The plural of Nelson is Nelsons (not Nelson’s). For example, The Nelsons live in suburban Chicago.

If the luggage-tag writer had wanted to indicate that the luggage belonged to the Nelsons, then he could have written The Nelsons’. Note the possessive apostrophe after the pluralized family name.

Solution:
“The Nelsons”

I saw this at shop.wordpress.net/usa/t-shirts.

Problems:
1. An apostrophe is missing.
2. The modifiers of “T-Shirt” are in a confusing order.

Explanations:
1. The first problem is that the plural noun “Women” requires a possessive apostrophe followed by an “s” to indicate the possession of the “T-Shirt” by the women.

I believe that the absence of a required possessive apostrophe can be attributable to:

• A typographical error;
• Ignorance about possessive apostrophes.

Given how often I see “Mens” and “Womens” (instead of “Men’s” and “Women’s”) 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’s simpler to write possessive words without apostrophes than to write them with apostrophes.

I blogged about possessive apostrophes yesterday (”NEW YEARS EVE WITH CARSON DALY”), too. Maybe something is in the water for the holidays.

2. The second problem is that the modifiers of “T-Shirt” are in a confusing order. I doubt that the writer meant to refer to “Red Women”, but one could easily infer this from the current order of the modifiers. This is analogous to “Green Lady’s Handbag” (when what is meant is “Lady’s Green Handbag”).

The solution to this confusion is to start from scratch. We have a T-shirt. Most important, it comes from WordPress, so it’s a WordPress T-shirt (with the noun “WordPress” acting as an adjective to modify the noun “T-shirt”). It comes in red, so it’s a red WordPress T-shirt (with the adjective “red” modifying the noun phrase “WordPress T-shirt”). It’s for women, so we put the possessive “women’s” in front of red WordPress T-shirt to get the solution.

Solution:
“Women’s Red WordPress T-Shirt”

I saw this title repeatedly on an NBC television program last evening.

Problem:
An apostrophe is missing.

Explanation:
There it was in all capital letters as we headed into the year 2008: a program title screaming to be scanned for errors. Sure enough, there was one.

The singular noun “YEAR” requires a possessive apostrophe followed by an “S” to indicate the possession of the “EVE” by the year. Another way to write this phrase is “EVE OF THE NEW YEAR …”.

I believe that the absence of a required possessive apostrophe can be attributable to:

1. A typographical error;
2. Ignorance about possessive apostrophes.

Given how bold the title was, I dismiss #1 for the program title. Surely someone at NBC would have caught the error, if she understood how to use possessive apostrophes.

That leaves us with #2 for the program title. I believe that this ignorance is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis. It’s simpler to write possessive words without apostrophes than to write them with apostrophes.

For help with apostrophes, I highly recommend Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss. Look here for other better-communication books.

Solution:
“NEW YEAR’S EVE WITH CARSON DALY”

I saw this in an email message.

Problems:
1. Numbers that begin sentences should be written as words.
2. The word “there” is not a possessive pronoun.
3. It’s unclear whether the ten employees have one guest each or have a total of exactly one guest.

Explanation:
1. Some say that numbers less than 100 should be written as words, whereas others say that numbers less than ten should be written as words. Ignoring this controversy as well as the liberties taken by advertisers and headline writers, it is widely accepted that a number that begins a sentence should be written as a word.

2. The word “there” is not a possessive pronoun. As homonyms or homophones, “there” and “their” and “they’re” are too frequently misused. The guest belonging to or possessed by the employee(s) (see #3) takes the possessive pronoun “their” — not “there” or (even worse!) “they’re”.

3. Based on the first two explanations, we can rewrite this sentence introduction as “Ten lucky employees and their one guest have …”, but confusion remains! We don’t know whether each employee has a guest or the ten employees as a group have one guest. The remainder of the sentence was “… the opportunity to go on the floor and greet the [basketball] players as they go out on the court during half time.” Assuming that each lucky employee gets to have his or her own guest, we get the solution.

Solution:
“Ten lucky employees and one guest per lucky employee have …”