Apostrophes

The title of this blog entry is not gripping to everyone, I know, but it is something I think about way more than I should, so it seems like an obvious blog post to me. This is one of those moments where I admit that I do something I don't normally like to do, which is cast blame on a younger generation. I really try hard not to fall into the "kids these days" trap; assuming that the generation behind mine is terrible about (enter topic here) and that my generation was far superior about that particular topic. There are many reasons to avoid this kind of thinking, so I do my darndest, but when it comes to apostrophes, I can't help myself. Apostrophes make me so crazy that I'm ready to abandon my principles to try and intervene before it's too late.

First, let me explain why thinking the generation behind yours in worse than you were when you were a kid is wrong and bad. It's wrong because they are not worse than we were. Every generation is annoyed by younger people, with their energy, their exuberance, their attitudes that they are invincible and will never get old like us. That makes sense, because youthful naivete and enthusiasm is annoying. But this generation of kids is not more annoying in its youthiness than we were (thank you, Stephen Colbert, for giving us "truthiness," the inspiration for my new word), it is simply a different kind of youthiness, which comes across as more annoying to us older folks.

Setting aside the notorious and extremely rare occassions like Columbine (which are also probably not indicative of a more violent youth today, but actually more reflective of a larger population and more extensive media coverage that makes these events seem more likely), there is little difference between how kids act generation to generation. Kids are not louder or more disrespectful than they were when we were kids, we were just kids and didn't realize how loud and disrespectful we were. Kids aren't more violent today than they were when we were kids; every generation of kids since the beginning of time has delighted in beating the crap out of each other with sticks. Kids aren't lazier than they were when we were kids, they just have better ways to entertain themselves while sitting on their rear ends than we did and have far superior hand-eye coordination to my generation (thanks be to Super Mario, or whatever newfangled video game the kids are playing today). Kids are still just kids, with a different set of toys than we had.

The good news is that kids really haven't changed over the years. The bad news is that grown ups haven't either, with their wishing for things to be the way they were when we were kids. This "kids these days" attitude has been around for a very long time. In 79 A.D., Mt. Vesuvius covered Pompeii in volcanic ash, freezing the city in time for archeologists to discover many years later. Those archeologists found a lot of vulgar graffiti, along with at least one complaint (in the form of graffiti) about the amount of graffiti on the walls in Pompeii. While that complaint could have come from a young person, I'm betting even money it was someone who was annoyed by those pesky Pompeiian kids.

I admit I have little to no proof that I'm right about my "kids are kids" theory, but I think it's true, and it's my blog, so I get to say it like I mean it. Except that I have found myself slipping into the vortex recently, and I am here to confess my sins and vent about my frustration. My one solace is that my concern for the younger generation does not condemn their character, ethics, or values, it has more to do with their use of apostrophes. You read it right, apostrophes. Kids today (or more accurately, people today, because the affliction appears to be terribly contagious and is spreading into more mature generations) have an affection for apostrophes that knows no bounds, and they sprinkle them into their writing with reckless abandon.

I don't really know why apostrophes are so abused. It might be the more relaxed grammatical standards in e-mail or texting, it might be that grade school teachers have decided that the battle is too daunting to teach students about appropritate apostrophe usage, or it might be that there is some sort of apostrophe aphrodisiac in the water supply that I have not yet tasted that makes people slaves to the apostrophe. Whatever the culprit, the result is that people use apostrophes totally incorrectly with a gleeful abandon that boggles the mind. It seems that some think that every s needs an apostrophe, because I've read sentences like "the tree's are beautiful when in bloom" and "my hand's are killing me!" I just don't think this sort of thing happened as much when I was a kid.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's been happening all along and I just never noticed. Maybe that graffiti in Pompeii was riddled with inappropriate apostrophes, but I do feel strongly that it's gotten worse. And it makes me so crazy I could scream. It just looks so . . . wrong.

And so begins my "love the apostrophe less" campaign. Please use them responsibly (to indicate possessives, such as "Annie's ball," "the Davis' front door," or "the tree's bark is rough," or a conjunctive, like shortening "it is" to "it's") or not at all. A lack of an apostrophe looks much better than an apostrophe out of place. And please let a restaurant manager know when you see an error on a menu, because you will. Whatever you do, though, please respect the proper use of the apostrophe and set an example for the "kids these days," because things really are getting worse, and it's annoying.