greengrocer's apostrophe
See also: greengrocers' apostrophe and greengrocer's-apostrophe
English
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Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From the relatively common misusage of apostrophes seen on the placards used at greengroceries.
Noun
[edit]greengrocer's apostrophe (plural greengrocer's apostrophes or (humorous) greengrocers apostrophe's)
- An incorrectly used apostrophe; (especially) one mistakenly used to form the plural of a noun, for example: writing the plural of banana as banana's (a possessive) instead of bananas.
- 1998, Richard M. Hogg et al., The Cambridge History of the English Language, page 121:
- It is hardly surprising that these conventions seem to be in rapid collapse, with what has been called "the greengrocer's apostrophe" (apple's 60p, Antique's, linguistic's, and perhaps even mean't, all personally attested) […]
- 2003 November 6, Lynne Truss, “The Tractable Apostrophe”, in Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, London: Profile Books Ltd, →ISBN, page 49:
- The vast majority of letters concerned misplaced apostrophes, of course, in potato’s and lemon’s. But it was interesting, once I started to analyse and sort the examples, to discover that the greengrocer’s apostrophe formed just one depressing category of the overall, total, mind-bogglingly depressing misuse of the apostrophe.
- 2004, Joy Burrough-Boenisch, Righting English That's Gone Dutch:
- When applied in English it produces greengrocer's apostrophes.
- 2024 October 7, Philip Oltermann, “Germans decry influence of English as ‘idiot’s apostrophe’ gets official approval”, in The Guardian[1]:
- The Deppenapostroph is not to be confused with the English greengrocer’s apostrophe, when an apostrophe before an ‘s’ is mistakenly used to form the plural of a noun (“a kilo of potato’s”).
Synonyms
[edit]Translations
[edit]incorrectly used apostrophe
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