Dear members,
Welcome to the January 2025 newsletter from the Apostrophe Protection Society. I wish you a very happy New Year - may your 2025 be full of correctly used apostrophes! If you're a new member, I've already welcomed you with a separate email, but I welcome you again. If you're an existing member then thank you, as always, for being members and for supporting the APS.
In February, it will be 3 years since I revived and re-launched the Apostrophe Protection Society. At the time, I didn't know how much interest there would be in the APS. I've been very pleased to find that there are so many of you out there in the English-speaking world who do actually care about the correct use of the apostrophe. Membership of the APS has now reached 4500 - a figure that simply amazes and delights me!
Reflecting back on 2024, it was quite a good, productive year for the APS. The year started with the "Butter No Parsnips" podcast featuring the apostrophe, the APS, and me. It was a lot of fun to do. But possibly the biggest story of the year for the apostrophe was in April with the decision by North Yorkshire Council to drop apostrophes from street signs, and from St Mary's Walk in Harrogate as a specific example. After a surprising amount of media coverage across multiple countries, and various media interviews with me, the council scrapped the plan (citing the APS) and have agreed to keep those apostrophes after all.
North Yorkshire Council managed to feature again in August with their anti-litter campaign featuring Yorkshire dialect with "Gerrit in't bin". The incorrect placement of the contraction apostrophe (it should have been "Gerrit in t'bin") caused a bit of an uproar in Yorkshire, and resulted in several radio and newspaper interviews with me, before the council acknowledged their mistake and got the posters reprinted.
Also in August, there was a brief flurry of media excitement over whether the newly announced Democratic Party candidates Harris and Walz should have just an apostrophe in their possessives (Harris') or also "s" (Harris's). I was pleased to be interviewed by the New York Times, amongst others on this somewhat trivial matter (the decision is down to which style guide you follow), but ultimately it didn't matter anyway! August also saw International Apostrophe Day (the 15th, so put that in your 2025 calendars), and a moderate amount of coverage from various parts of the media.
Finally for 2024, October gave us the somewhat obscure story about the German use of apostrophes and the decision to relax the rules on the use of apostrophes to show possession in very specific use cases. It wasn't strictly relevant for the English language, but it was another welcome opportunity to keep the media interested in apostrophes. As I noted in my last newsletter, I also had local success in persuading the "Heaven's Kitchen" chain of restaurants that simple plurals of words such as "Tuesday" don't need apostrophes!
Looking ahead to 2025, I wonder what apostrophe misuses will feature. Perhaps there will be another local council that decides that apostrophes in street or town names are just too difficult to get right. Or perhaps there will be more major stores that decide that a liberal sprinkling of apostrophes is just what their shop signs or adverts need to brighten things up. Whatever it is, if I hear of it, I'll do my best to take action to get these misuses corrected.
Thank you to all those of you that have sent in photographs of apostrophe errors that you've spotted. I've added a number of those to the website on the "Latest Examples" page. Please keep sending them in!
That's all for this edition of the newsletter. Once again, thank you for being members - it helps to give the APS credibility, and I really appreciate your support.
Best wishes,
Bob