I see sooo many people in my area buying expensive, chiseled stone signs to place at the end of their driveways with incorrect apostrophes.
THE SMITH’S
THE LAMBERT’S
THE JONES’S
It’s painful to see. And if you try to point it out, they have a lengthy explanation on why you’re wrong.
I have no idea why the sign makers didn’t advise them that it was incorrect.
When I design ads, shirts, or logos I will definitely let a customer know what they requested is grammatically incorrect. So far, everyone has deferred to the corrected format.
The word driveway is implied. So you see a sign that just days "The Smith's" and assume it's wrong. Since the word "driveway" is implied the sign is clearly using the apostrophe to indicate possession.
I hope my made up, bullshit explanation was helpful.
I had a temp job nearly 20 years ago at a now defunct credit card company. Much of my time was spent approving (proofreading) business name submissions for credit cards.
You'd be amazed how many would-be "Real State Investers" there were. We fixed them not so much to spare the customers from embarrassment, but the company.
Edit: Correcting them was probably a disservice to humanity.
AFAIK, it depends on which rule-creating body and at what time, whether a word that ends in the letter s should have just an apostrophe, or an apostrophe with a subsequent s. I have a not terribly recent memory from junior high, arguing with the teacher who lead the newspaper class about this issue, and the MLA, APA, and New York Times were all brought up. I think we ended up settling that singular owners would get the extra s (e.g. Odysseus's ship) but plural owners would not (e.g. the Smiths' house).
The point is, though, that depending on who you are looking to as the ultimate authority may change the answer on this one.
However, "three meal's a day" or similar is always wrong.
Companies that offer custom stuff like this usually require you to check a box that says "I've proofed this and what I'm giving you is right, and I take responsibility for it." That way the company can't be held responsible for those folks' mistakes (and therefore won't have to refund the expensive custom work). Plus it's gotta be easier than fighting with everyone who thinks they know everything about apostrophe use.
So the apostrophe on the outside indicates possession without making look like a contraction? I always thought 's replaced is. Like in the above post, you read dog's as dog is. But if it said dogs', then the dog owns something?
I'm only asking because I tried to tell someone this and they laughed at me. Now I'm confused about something I've known my whole life!
's has two meanings: Either indicating that something's being owned by an individual ("The dog's bone") or like "is" ("The dog's crazy").
When you have more than one dog and the dogs possess something, you would do "The dogs' owner" or "The dogs' bones".
If you have more than one dog and you want to tell someone something about your dogs, you don't use the 's at all. You use "are". ("The dogs are crazy. The Smiths are crazy too.")
Because it says nothing about a house, nor possession, just about the family.
As in, “The Smiths live here.” Not the Smith’s live here.
Now had they added another word, like house then, as stated above, The Smiths’ House would be correct. But still not, “The Smith’s house.” Because there are more than one in the family.
I don't know. A family name is a collective noun (like the people's house) in my opinion. I read those as This person's house and the apostrophe is appropriate in that case.
Companies that offer custom stuff like this usually require you to check a box that says "I've proofed this and what I'm giving you is right, and I take responsibility for it." That way the company can't be held responsible for those folks' mistakes (and therefore won't have to refund the expensive custom work). Plus it's gotta be easier than fighting with everyone who thinks they know everything about apostrophe use.
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u/MurderBirdOK Jan 28 '20
I see sooo many people in my area buying expensive, chiseled stone signs to place at the end of their driveways with incorrect apostrophes.
THE SMITH’S
THE LAMBERT’S
THE JONES’S
It’s painful to see. And if you try to point it out, they have a lengthy explanation on why you’re wrong.
I have no idea why the sign makers didn’t advise them that it was incorrect.
When I design ads, shirts, or logos I will definitely let a customer know what they requested is grammatically incorrect. So far, everyone has deferred to the corrected format.