On the Screenwriters Network bulletin from Shooting People (a great organization that publishes daily bulletins for film-makers, writers, animators, etc.) someone posted a message which read, “Workshop’s start at £12, edit’s start at £17.” I made the observation, “no charge for additional apostrophes, obviously. :-)“
The response of the moderator, the estimable Andy Conway, was, “That falls clearly into Trying to Start a Grammar Flame War territory, Jurgen. You know the rules about that. Yellow card for you.”
I didn’t know that mentioning incorrect punctuation on a writers’ site was controversial, and I have no desire to start a Flame War (which means angry postings back and forth).
Of course it’s a losing battle. All around us, apostrophes are being flung around or dropped with abandon and people who think two things that work well together are complimentary instead of complementary.
My formative years were spent escaping into reading, learning to value the choice of one word over another, and even being forced to diagram sentences by the sadistic, ancient (she must have been all of 45) Mrs. McKinley. They have left their mark and I can’t stop caring about getting it right. However, I’ll try to shut up about it in mixed company.
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