Apostrophe’s abuse’s continue’s in India

The UK-based Apostrophe Protection Society (APS) has just announced regretfully that it is shutting down, but must be persuaded that its presence is sorely required as there is a continuous, alarming rise in the number of abused apostrophes, particularly in India.

This situation obtains not because Indians hate the apostrophe but because we love it. So much so that we bung it in wherever we can: in name’s, place’s, firm’s, document’s and more. In fact, we love it to the extent that we use it especially when it’s not needed, even though it’s presence alter’s meaning’s.

In fact, we feel cheated if we cannot slip in a superfluous apostrophe or two at the end of a word or in a sentence to emphasise possession — a primary attribute of the punctuation mark. The pain that such rampant misuse causes to apostrophes is incalculable and remains unaddressed.


Evidently, India’s apostrophe crisis is unknown to the British nonagenarian who has closed down the APS in just 18 years. While most others can be accused of neglecting or abandoning the apostrophe — famous London department stores, for instance — it is quite the opposite in India, where apostrophes are wrongly tacked on nameplates, signboards and documents quite brazenly. Lack of (grammatical) awareness is no excuse for such abuse. And this is no time for APS to put a full stop to its efforts.