The Turner Ink blog contains rants, bloopers, observations and opinions. It also has handy tips on grammar and punctuation such as colons: semicolons; and full stops. As well as some very useful ‘how tos’. Feel free to leave comments. Be nice though.

Turner Ink

Copywriting Services London

Posts tagged 'apostrophes'

A sign of the times? Bloopers from around the UK

10th
Feb
by Sarah Turner

Friend and SEO colleague, Rob Dobson, emailed me this pic this afternoon from the Fulham Road, London. Hmmm…nice shop. Poor sign.

Window of La Maison Coloniale in Fulham

But La Maison is in good (bad?) company. Take a look at these corkers that have been sent to the MSN News site recently. 

Do not climb sign

Do not cling? Do not climb? Or what the heck. Let’s have both.

Help us reduce crime sign

Yeah, help us reduce crime against the English language.

Oxford Dictionary sign

I wonder if there were enough Ofxord Dictionary’s left to be handed out as leaving presents.

Waitress or waitor sign

We hope you’re fluent in English ‘cos we’re not. Although we make awesome stuffed olives.

 Tomato sign

You say tom-ah-to we say to-may-to. Let’s call the whole thing off.

Sue's Snax's sign

My personal fave. Sue’s Snax’s. So wrong. So very wrong.

Ladies powder room sign

I sort of love this sign. I like the fact the loo is referred to as a powder room. And it’s only 5p to have a tiddle. That’s a bargain.

What I especially like is one of the comments left on the MSN News site.

Also, in number 17, the apostrophe is not superfluous, merely in the wrong place as the word “ladies” is a plural, and the toilets are “ladies’ toilets”.

Oh, so it’s merely in the wrong place. That’s ok then.

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Tags: apostrophes
Posted in Bloopers, Grammar tips, Punctuation tips | comments icon 1 Comment »

Why are there no apostrophes in America?

1st
Dec
by Sarah Turner

I was watching Stephen Fry’s QI show on TV last night. And the subject of possessive apostrophes in place names, such as King’s Cross Road or Marshall’s Place, came up.

Martha's VineyardOf course, it was only last year that Birmingham City Council did away with apostrophes in their place names. So out goes St Paul’s Square and St Mary’s Road and in comes St Pauls Square and St Marys Road. Hmmmph.

But apparently this kind of thing has gone on in the US for years.

And, as was revealed on last night’s show, there are now only five place names in the whole of the US that use the possessive apostrophe. And they are:

  • Martha’s Vineyard, MA
  • Ike’s Point, NJ
  • John E’s Pond, RI
  • Clark’s Mountain, OR
  • Carlos Elmer’s Joshua View, AZ

Which begs the question: who was Carlos Elmer? And why was his view so important?

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Tags: apostrophes
Posted in Grammar tips, Word stuff | comments icon 1 Comment »

Is the education system failing our children?

8th
Oct
by Sarah Turner

Depressing news in The Independent this week: Overseas students are better at English than British students.

According to Professor Bernard Lamb, who carried out the research, British undergraduates are nearly three times more likely to make errors in written English than those from overseas.

Depressing? Yes. Surprising? No.

After spending a year studying the written work of his students, Lamb was appalled by spelling errors such as flourescence, alot, seperate, yeild, relevent and introduications.

Grammatical errors included ‘done by my partner and I’ and ‘a women’. Whilst poor punctuation ranged from the misuse of semicolons to a complete lack of possessive apostrophes.

The Queen’s English Society, of which Lamb is president, blames the errors on a “widespread deterioration in standards.”

Lamb goes on to say that “we need to raise the very poor standards of English by more demanding syllabuses and exams, more explicit teaching and examining of English (including grammar, spelling and punctuation) and by consistent correction of errors by teachers of all subjects.”

And I couldn’t agree more.

The wishy washy liberalism that has pervaded our education system means there’s a reluctance to correct written work. There seems to be a belief that pointing out a kid’s poor spelling, sloppy punctuation or bad grammar will somehow thwart that child’s creativity.

Here’s the news: it won’t.

Good grammar and punctuation skills are the foundation on which great writing is built. Kids that get the ‘rules’ enjoy the act of writing a whole lot more. It’s like explaining the offside rule to a kid who wants to be footballer; the more he understands the game the more fun it is.

Lamb demands a more “consistent correction of errors by teachers”. But the real worry is that teachers themselves have a poor understanding of the English language.

Take a look at this picture sent to me by Twitter pal @racinghippo. This came home with his daughter’s homework this week. Scary, isn’t it?

This week's homework

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Tags: apostrophes, semicolons, writing technique
Posted in Grammar tips, Punctuation tips, Word stuff | comments icon 4 Comments »

Can you right? Your hired

22nd
Jul
by Sarah Turner

Fellow copywriter Clare Lynch, over at daccreative, spotted this howler on a recruitment ad for an Internal Communications Manager, at a well known VOIP company.

We are looking for someone who can demonstrate that they:

Are excellent communicator’s with solid writing ability, as you will have significant responsibility for writing and editing in-house communications.

Ho. Ho. Seems like they need to fill this position pretty darn quick.

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Tags: apostrophes
Posted in Bloopers | comments icon No comments yet »

Is it ‘it’s’or ‘its’? Confused?

28th
Feb
by Sarah Turner

The use of it’s and its seem to get a lot of people confused. I even saw this on a website recently – I swear this is true – ‘i’ts very good!’ Nope. It’s very bad. So this is the easiest way to remember: 

It’s is a contraction of it is. So

It’s (it is) a nice day. It’s (it is) a small world.

Its means ‘belonging to it’. So

The house has lost its value. Here’s the car but where are its keys?

See? It’s not difficult is it?

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Tags: apostrophes
Posted in Punctuation tips | comments icon No comments yet »

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