Newsletters & Blogs

Welcome to the July 2026 newsletter from the Apostrophe Protection Society If you're a new member, you've already received a personal welcome — but let me say it again: welcome! And to all our long-standing members, thank you, as always, for your continued support. ­ More Apostrophe Curiosities on the Website If you enjoy the more unusual corners of English punctuation, we've recently added three new articles to the APS website. Have you ever wondered why Victorian writers ha

​From time to time, members ask about words such as crack'd, bless'd or lov'd. Have the apostrophe rules changed, or are these simply old-fashioned mistakes? ​ The answer is that they're neither. ​ These spellings were once a perfectly normal way of showing that one or more letters had been omitted. Crack'd stands for cracked, bless'd for blessed, and lov'd for loved. The apostrophe tells us that the "e" has disappeared. ​ Writers, poets and printers used these contractions e

​Every so often, an APS member asks a wonderfully awkward question: if can't comes from cannot and won't comes from will not, why is shall not contracted to shan't? Surely it ought to be sha'n't, with two apostrophes? It's a fair question. The answer lies in history rather than logic. ​Originally, both forms existed. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, writers occasionally used sha'n't, with one apostrophe marking the missing letters in shall and the other marking

​Here's a modern apostrophe puzzle that would have baffled Shakespeare. ​ When an initialism becomes a verb, how do we add -ed? Consider these examples: I cc'd everyone in the email. She OK'd the proposal. They RSVP'd yesterday. The apostrophe is there for a good reason. Without it, ccd, OKed and RSVPed look awkward and can be difficult to read. The apostrophe neatly separates the abbreviation from the ending, making it immediately obvious that -d represents the past tense. ​

Welcome to the April 2026 newsletter from the Apostrophe Protection Society If you're a new member, you've already had a personal welcome — but let me say it again: Welcome! And to all our long-standing members, thank you, as always, for your continued support. APS Website - Updated home page and Rogues' Gallery I've made a few changes to the website homepage over the last few weeks, aiming to bring it to life a bit more with additional content and previews. If you can spare

This article was published in the University of Minnesota Retirees Association newsletter, Spring 2026.

This story in the "Yountville Sun" (a town in northern California) shows the importance of apostrophe placement in a wine-based legal dispute. https://yountvillesun.com/the-apostrophe/ The apostrophe By Richard Puntillo September 11, 2025 In this piece, I want to tell a true story of the importance of the apostrophe. Indeed, the exact placement of an apostrophe was central to a decision of the California Supreme Court. The story begins some 50 years ago in Paris at the inter

For those of you not familiar with it, Countdown is a much loved British TV game show involving word and mathematical tasks. It's been running since 1982, currently on its 92nd series! One of the regular co-presenters is the lexicographer Susie Dent. On the show broadcast on 23 March 2026, she stated: "There is an Apostrophe Protection Society and I kind of secretly admire them." It might only be a small mention, but from Susie Dent it's a big moment! And, very importantly, i

There is quite a good article on the apostrophe on RTE's website (RTE is the national radio broadcaster in Ireland).The article, updated in January this year, also has a link to an interview I did on RTE back in September 2023, so it's doubly worth having a look at. Here's an extract of the article to set the scene: Analysis: This little piece of punctuation has been labelled 'aberrant', 'troublesome' and 'ambivalent' and is regularly embarrassed in public places By Deborah T