Mark Twain’s encounter with a particular foreign tongue inspired an essay called “The Awful German Language.” Welcome to a new feature of this column. We won’t call it “The Awful English Language.” ...

Those of us who respect and appreciate proper apostrophe usage awoke yesterday to some upsetting news: John Richards, one of the most ardent defenders of the correct use of the apostrophe, is giving ...

Apostrophes are the curly floating commas in sentences that usually indicate possession or a contraction. There are a few set phrases and holidays, however, that also use apostrophes. In fact, ...

In French, to show that someone possesses something, you use their word for “of,” which is “de”: La plume de ma tante. Spanish works the same way: La venganza de Moctezuma. Italian, too: Buca di Beppo ...

Great news for everyone on Team Laziness and Ignorance. We won! That’s the parting shot from the founder of the Apostrophe Protection Society, 96-year-old retired journalist John Richards, who shut ...

LONDON – On the streets of Birmingham, the queen’s English is now the queens English. England’s second-largest city has decided to drop apostrophes from all its street signs, saying they’re confusing ...

Apostrophes are flooding the market – and mostly in all the wrong places. Old time teachers of English grammar must be turning over in their graves. Even some writers and editors seem unaware of the ...

Here are three snapshots from the fall of 2012: The Mitt Romney campaign began distributing this bumper sticker; the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team unveiled a new court design featuring the years ...

It's about time for our possessives to do a reverse Pluto. Pluto, you know, used to be a planet. Then it got demoted. This is like a word being turned into a prefix or suffix. Well, my ...

For nearly two decades, John Richards dedicated his life to protecting an endangered species: the correctly placed apostrophe. As the founder of the Apostrophe Protection Society, he waged war against ...