Setting the Record Straight

Dear Mr. Montminy,

I am writing to you regarding a recent news segment in which a park sign, missing an apostrophe, was discussed. My understanding is that the apostrophe will be inserted into the sign, now that the error has been discovered.

I am told that you felt this was no big deal, that it was just a "small grammatical error."

I am a third grade teacher in Washington State. I work very hard at teaching my students when it is appropriate and inappropriate to use apostrophes in their writing. Eight- and nine-year-old children typically make two kinds of errors when working with this punctuation mark.

The most common mistake seems to involve misplacing apostrophes. Once the apostrophe is discovered as a new punctuation mark, my students tend to carelessly throw it around all over the place, most commonly using the apostrophe to pluralize words. For example, a third grader might write, "My cat's are fun to play with."

To help my students appreciate the apostrophe, and to develop more restraint when using it, I "charge" my students $1,000,000 for each apostrophe used in their writing. I tell them that I have two offers that they can use an apostrophe for free (to show ownership or to write a contraction), but all other apostrophes will require payment. This playful "threat" causes them to become much more deliberate when deciding to use an apostrophe.

The other challenge that I have is teaching my students where to place the apostrophe when writing a contraction. For example, a third grader might write "does'nt."

To help my students understand where the apostrophe is placed in contractions, we "act out" the merging of the two root words. (In this case, "does" and "not.") When the two words are joined together, they meet with such force that the letter "o" is jolted from position, and replaced with an apostrophe. This visual activity makes the concept both fun and easy for my students to remember apostrophe placement in contractions.

As you can see, I spend a fair amount of time working on making sure my students know how to handle apostrophes appropriately. When my friend, a resident of Maynard, MA, heard your statement on the air, he felt that I might like to share my thinking with you and alerted me to this story.

I believe that public signs should display correct grammar. Every effort should be made to avoid errors on public signs, and if ever an error is discovered on a public sign, it should be corrected immediately.

It is my hope that my thoughts have influenced your thinking, and that you no longer see the missing apostrophe as "no big deal." I'm certain that your third grade teacher would agree with me.

Sincerely,
Tiffany ******
Third Grade Teacher