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As a sign maker, there's not much that jumps out at me with more force than an inappropriately placed apostrophe. Of all the writing skills we are losing as a nation, proper use of the apostrophe has to be at the top of the list.
Many people seem to think that that cute little ( ' ) mark means, "look out, an S is coming!" As one example, there are the signs at our local Fry's Electronics store. Signs I've seen there include:
"DVD'S," "VCR'S," and "SMALL TV'S." I'm surprised they don't have "COMPUTER'S" and "RESTROOM'S." You see it everywhere. Nobody knows what to do with the little sucker.
I even got into an argument with a local radio programmer who insists on having "the Best of the 80's & More!" as the slogan for his station. And even worse, I've seen signs that say, "WOMENS RESTROOM," which is actually missing an apostrophe. Anyway, if you don't see anything wrong with these examples, check out the site below. You'll thank me for it!
[Excerpt]
The Apostrophe Protection Society was started in 2001 by John Richards, now its Chairman, with the specific aim of preserving the correct use of this currently much abused punctuation mark in all forms of text written in the English language.
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