Never has one tiny piece of punctuation in the English language causes so much consternation and reproach.

I blame “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves”.

Don’t get me wrong. Punctuation is important, and is part of writing well-crafted, comprehensible English.

Yet there are extremes.

I’ve been reading a lot about the humble apostrophe recently. Not, as you might imagine, in text books or even web sites devoted to the English language, but on an internal staff forum.

The problem is, when writing on a blog, is that millions of people with a pedantic eye for detail have access to your writing, and the means to correct you. Of course, they have never made a mistake in their life—at least not in public—and so feel totally justified in drawing attention to yours.

This then leads to ‘grammar lessons’ taught by people who make just as many mistakes.

What is added to the conversation on a blog that has nothing to do with the English language, with this exchange?

1: Also, you have a spurious apostrophe…

2. You were right about the apostrophe though. Hands have been slapped where necessary!

3. Apologies for the stray apostrophe, thanks for pointing it out

This then leads to another barrage of words on the internal forum:

Please can everyone be REALLY REALLY careful with their apostrophe use… It’s absolutely awful when readers feel the need to pick up on typos and misuse of punctuation on posts that have been put up while I’ve been out the office and unable to edit.

Yes, it’s nearly as absolutely awful as… oooh… world poverty, child abuse, the systemic mistreatment of the elderly in Britain’s care homes.

Heaven forbid that the apostrophe is ever, ever, ever, misplaced or misused, thus making the sentence grammatically incorrect, and, apparently, unintelligible.

(Sorry for my overuse of commas in that last sentence, by the way.)

I wouldn’t mind, except that the ‘experts’ on this forum have been known to send out press releases with offensive grammar. Yes, really.

Being told to check and proof-read material is all very well, but it would be nice if those dishing out the orders would observe the same standards.