Now AIB adopts the Present-Tense Apostrophe
17 January, 2011
We used to mock the Greengrocer’s Apostrophe, where simple plurals were adorned with a redundant piece of punctuation (such as “Twelve apple’s for €3″). If that wasn’t bad enough, two years ago I started to spot an even worse solecism: the use of an apostrophe in the third person present tense of a verb. The first hair-raising example I spotted was in an advertisement in the Sunday Tribune T2 section on 13th September 2009, where we were told that “The Gate Theatre Celebrate’s [sic] Friel”. The Irish Times joined in the fun last year in its TV listings for 15th June,2010 where we were informed (in relation to a World Cup match) that “the likelihood of another shock look’s [sic] slim”).
Today I received an e-mail from AIB Global Treasury Services informing me that “Euro Edge’s [sic] Back From One Month High”, reproduced below.
It’s bad enough that our taxes are being used to keep these people in their well-paid jobs. The least they could do is avoid grammatical or punctuation howlers in their communications with the outside world. It reminds me of AIB chief executive Colm Doherty’s misuse of the word “Fulsome” last September.
26 November, 2011 at 8:52 pm
[...] And that was in 1999, before the use of redundant apostrophes in plural nouns (the Greengrocer’s Apostrophe) became as prevalent as it is today. Not to mention the new and horrific variant, the use of an apostrophe in the third person present tense of a verb, which I flagged here, here and here. [...]