Apostroplectic!
What is wrong with this picture? (Taken from the New York Times wedding page.)
The answer? The apostrophe is facing the wrong way. This drives me up a wall. And it shocks me that not only did "Bob and Gail" make this mistake on something they passed out at their wedding, but they submitted the photo to the New York Times. And not only did they submit this photo to the Times, but the Times printed it.
When will people learn that when apostrophes are used to replace part of a word, they should curve to the right? That is to say, when you write a word like "don't," in which the apostrophe replaces the "o" in "do not," the hollow part of the apostrophe faces to the left, while the full part faces to the right. It looks a little like a backward "c."
And replacing the first two numbers of a year is just the same as replacing the "o" in "do not." So the apostrophe should face in the same direction.
Have the New York Times' standards dropped this much?
posted by Red Fraggle @ 7:01 PM
4 Comments:
Ooh, now you have introduced a new thing to bug me. In the past it's been mostly "myself" and "I," as in: "Please see Bob or myself if you have any questions," or "then they showed it to Bob and I." Now the apostrophe!
At least we can celebrate that people are catching on to the misuse of the possessive apostrophe:
I'm seeing a lot more "60s" rather than "60's".
But their's still certain other gaffs out their that drives me right up the wall...
I don't think you can blame the Times for this. Particularly because it was in the Vows column, not a regular announcement. They're reporting on an event -- it is what it is. If the people in question don't know how to punctuate properly, what is the Times supposed to do about it.
This does remind me how much I miss Veiled Conceit though.
Yeah, as soon as I saw the announcement I went to Veiled Conceit, but nothing new--still the same post that has been up since June 30.
I was thinking the same thing about not blaming the Times, Bailey, until I realized that the paper chose what photo to run with that announcement. They didn't have to choose one with poor punctuation. Unless they were trying to make a point.
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