Newsletters & Blogs

Crack'd, bless'd and lov'd – where have all the missing letters gone?

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

Blogs

Jul 15

Shan't or Sha'n't?

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

Blogs

Jul 14

Cc'd, OK'd and RSVP'd

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.

Blogs

Jul 13