Apostrophe Catastrophes

Since I’m too car-shocked (like shell-shocked, only caused by car travel with children) to blog anything substantial, I’ll follow up last night’s post on Fargo-Moorhead signage atrocities with this photo of the sign at the restaurant where we had a very nice extended-family dinner on Sunday.

To answer the sign’s question, what would be good for me would be better punctuation! But I’ll make do with Julia’s inadvertently apt misspeaking: as she tries to understand the differences between commas and apostrophes, she frequently asks if a particular mark is a “high prepostrophe” or a “low prepostrophe.” This sign is definitely a high prepostrophe.

Fryn' Pan

4 thoughts on “Apostrophe Catastrophes”

  1. Actually, this is less awful than some, since the prepostrophe that’s there is actually correct; it’s the gestalt (and missing prepostrophe to replace the “i”) that grabs the attention… Still, in my mind, it’s better than “cat’s and dog’s.”

  2. Went to a meeting at Blue Earth County’s brand new fancy courts building a week or so ago. The permanent signs outside the bathrooms read: “Womens” and “Mens.”

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