Wednesday, December 1, 2010

I Wonder Why...Verbal Apostrophe S

I blame grocers. Henry's, Vons, Ralphs, Albertsons, Trader Joes...they all have it. Strangely only a handful still print the actual apostrophe in the logo. Saves money on ink to just hack it off, I'm guessing. By no means is my overdramatic blame limited to supermarkets. Eateries are infamous. Denny's, Baja Betty's, Marie Callender's...

We use these iconic names so often that we no longer associate the name with the kind of establishment that may have (at one point) been run by a singular operator with a borderline-narcissistic affinity for his own name. We now figure that the name of ANY place of commerce or entertainment can carry the audible 's sound after it.

My sisters always say "Piatti's," when referring to Piatti Ristorante & Bar. Ryan has been known to say, "Fumari's," and I've heard many a casual speaker say, "Corvette Diner's."

There are exceptions, of course. I wouldn't say, "I'm going to F Street's," or "Meet me at Target's." In all fairness, if I were going to either, I probably wouldn't be telling you. Maybe it's the unvoiced guttural stop from the letter T that cancels out our impulse to slap an 's onto the end of it.

Whatever be the reason(s) we've developed this habit, I'm open to hearing your hypotheses.

Until then, remember that the apostrophe has its uses:
-to indicate ownership (Famke's incredible height; Seamus' haggis recipe [after names ending in s, only an apostrophe is added, no additional s]).
-to replace letters (the a and d in rock 'n' roll; the o in isn't, etc).
-as a quote within a quote ("And then I said, 'His was totally bigger!'") in which case it ceases to be an apostrophe and becomes a single quotation mark.

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