Fucking Apostrophes

Obviously, there is a lot of swearing in this particular post, so if you don’t like excessive swearing please close this page immediately. I got this book courtesy of Harry Hartog, and as a self-professed grammar fanatic, there was no way I could walk past this one. The prevalence of apostrophe misuse in our society is enormous, and each superfluous apostrophe or forgotten apostrophe that I see on a sandwich board causes me immense pain.

“Fucking Apostrophes” by Simon Griffin is a pocket-sized guidebook on how to correctly (and incorrectly) use apostrophes in the English language. Divided into a handful of short chapters, this book covers omissions or contractions, possessive fucking apostrophes, pronouns and fucking apostrophes and plural fucking apostrophes.

So, why should you read this book? This book takes a dry topic (grammar) and spices it up with something most people find amusing (profanity). The result is a quick, educational and funny book. I was slightly sheepish about reading it on the plane, but it made me laugh aloud in several spots which, to be honest, books rarely do. Griffin peppers this little book with lots of great, modern examples to give these everyday concepts some context. Griffin acknowledges that there are some situations where there are differences of opinion and divergent uses, but (happily for me), states unequivocally that there is absolutely no scenario where “CD’s” is OK. Society really needs this book. In walking around town to take the above photo, it was unbelievably easy for me to find examples of apostrophes being misused or forgotten (well, except for having to dodge all the chuggers).

This would make a great gift for anybody who likes a laugh but is a bit shaky on their punctuation. This would make a great buy for yourself if you want to brush up on your own grammar. This would make a great book for the bookshelf of a quiet pub. I thoroughly enjoyed it, I learned a thing or two and I’ve already passed it on to the next person.