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The Apostrophe Catastrophe
Nov. 23rd, 2020 08:41 pmSo it's becoming increasingly common for people to "stylize" their writing by using an apostrophe without an s to make the possessive of singular nouns that end in s (eg. "the bus' tires"... *shudders*) This trend has gained enough popularity that now it's even technically prescriptively okay to do this in some stylizing guides and circles.
But there are two major reasons why this is a terrible idea.
First off, apostrophe-s mimics pronunciation. When we say "The warlus's mustache" we pronounce both the s at the end of walrus and the s after the apostrophe, much like it's written. If you just use an apostrophe without an s, we just have to ... pronounce an invisible s, or else we'll be saying "The walrus mustache" which is something completely different. Sure, there's plenty of weird pronunciation stuff like that in English, but making something harder to read purely for the sake of (an ugly) stylizing technique is ... laughable, at best.
Then there's the most important reason: using only an apostrophe after singular nouns creates ambiguity. So if you're someone who will argue for an oxford comma but likes to put an apostrophe after a singular noun, congratulations, you're a hypocrite!
For example, in the game Temtem, it becomes apparent that they use a solo apostrophe after singular nouns when you see it in usage where it is clear -- like when you trigger Kalabyss's Toxic Skin (written, quite horrifically, in the game as "Kalabyss' Toxic Skin," which looks ugly and doesn't properly show pronunciation) ...
But then you have a place called "Dabmis' Rest" in the game. There's no other lore to tell you what a 'Dabmi' is. Or is it that I should be saying there's no lore to tell you what 'Dabmis' are? Is 'Dabmi' the singular and the rest belongs to a collective of 'Dabmi?' Or is there a thing called a 'Dabmis' which finds its rest in this location? We don't know! This ambiguity is created because Temtem decided to value ~cute stylization~ over writing clear and cohesive prose.
And because the ambiguity is caused by a choice that not only creates ambiguity in meaning, but also one that fails to communicate pronunciation, we also have no idea how to pronounce "Dabmis' Rest." If 'Dabmis' is a plural, we would pronounce it with just the one s at the end, but if Dabmis is singular, we would need to add a mysterious extra s sound that we would have no idea should even be there because of this atrocious stylization choice.
(What's particularly appalling about this is due to the way it displays certain text strings, they actually had to go out of their way to program this iffy maybe-grammatically-correct-in-some-circles stylization logic into the code!)
I also love how creating extra ambiguity to both meaning and pronunciation is just a huge "fuck you" to ESL learners, too.
So yeah, if you still choose to use this godawful stylization after reading this, then rather a huge fuck you for intentionally producing writing that creates ambiguity in both meaning and pronunciation. Your writing is worse because of it, and you should feel bad.
But there are two major reasons why this is a terrible idea.
First off, apostrophe-s mimics pronunciation. When we say "The warlus's mustache" we pronounce both the s at the end of walrus and the s after the apostrophe, much like it's written. If you just use an apostrophe without an s, we just have to ... pronounce an invisible s, or else we'll be saying "The walrus mustache" which is something completely different. Sure, there's plenty of weird pronunciation stuff like that in English, but making something harder to read purely for the sake of (an ugly) stylizing technique is ... laughable, at best.
Then there's the most important reason: using only an apostrophe after singular nouns creates ambiguity. So if you're someone who will argue for an oxford comma but likes to put an apostrophe after a singular noun, congratulations, you're a hypocrite!
For example, in the game Temtem, it becomes apparent that they use a solo apostrophe after singular nouns when you see it in usage where it is clear -- like when you trigger Kalabyss's Toxic Skin (written, quite horrifically, in the game as "Kalabyss' Toxic Skin," which looks ugly and doesn't properly show pronunciation) ...
But then you have a place called "Dabmis' Rest" in the game. There's no other lore to tell you what a 'Dabmi' is. Or is it that I should be saying there's no lore to tell you what 'Dabmis' are? Is 'Dabmi' the singular and the rest belongs to a collective of 'Dabmi?' Or is there a thing called a 'Dabmis' which finds its rest in this location? We don't know! This ambiguity is created because Temtem decided to value ~cute stylization~ over writing clear and cohesive prose.
And because the ambiguity is caused by a choice that not only creates ambiguity in meaning, but also one that fails to communicate pronunciation, we also have no idea how to pronounce "Dabmis' Rest." If 'Dabmis' is a plural, we would pronounce it with just the one s at the end, but if Dabmis is singular, we would need to add a mysterious extra s sound that we would have no idea should even be there because of this atrocious stylization choice.
(What's particularly appalling about this is due to the way it displays certain text strings, they actually had to go out of their way to program this iffy maybe-grammatically-correct-in-some-circles stylization logic into the code!)
I also love how creating extra ambiguity to both meaning and pronunciation is just a huge "fuck you" to ESL learners, too.
So yeah, if you still choose to use this godawful stylization after reading this, then rather a huge fuck you for intentionally producing writing that creates ambiguity in both meaning and pronunciation. Your writing is worse because of it, and you should feel bad.
