Fucking Apostrophes
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley November 17, 2016
Author Simon Griffin
Distributor: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 9781785781414
Publisher: Icon
Release Date: November 2016
Website: http:/www.allenandunwin.com
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Well, what can one say about Fucking Apostrophes other than finally, someone out there has decided to write a little book which deals with this terrible issue of Apostrophes. After all they have plagued people for ever and ever and ever, since that dratted man, one Geoffrey Troy, who was a printer and not a linguist, for some reason or other, decided to introduce Apostrophes into the French Language. Perhaps therein lays the cause of the modern day anguish when having to deal with these things called Apostrophes! The French language!
It then follows, as the French had them for use in printing, the English also had to have them, and somehow or other they have weaselled and worked their way into the English language, there to plague us all from time to time, like every day to be sure!
But, by the time you have finished working your way through this serious, but ‘tongue-in-cheek’ guide to the correct use of the Apostrophe, you will either be one of two things, considerably wiser or completely confused.
Who would ever thought a simple little blot on the paper that resembles a tadpole or a number nine with the hole filled in, could cause such angst within the framework of a language. The Greeks may have been the root cause of the issue, but it took the French and the British to refine the little blot into something else entirely.
Used in so many ways these days, as a decoration in signage or the latest trendy way to present a business name, correctly as it was intended to be as a component of the English language, or a tool to send people completely insane trying to work out just where to put the B……y thing, it still remains a fascinating blot which will and can, and does, change the emphasis of the words used, and if you get it wrong, whoa betide!!
For those of you who love language this is a definite must read, for those of you struggling to cope with this apparently simple little blot, it is an essential part of your kit, and for everyone else, if nothing else it will give you a good laugh, you will be able to show off your new found skills with the correct placement of Apostrophes, or else give it to someone you know as great little Christmas gift.