I’m an unabashed word nerd. I won’t suggest that I’m any better at using words than anyone else is, but I’ve relished the heft of well-used words all my life. I can track this enjoyment all the way back to 5th grade. During a heated exchange with someone who always felt compelled to make me feel small, I had a moment of pure, unadulterated victory. I somewhat dramatically exited the room with: “You make me so sick, I could vomit!” I returned to find my tormenter looking up the word “vomit” in the classroom dictionary, and one of my best friends laughing.

So it is no surprise that Benjamin Dreyer’s text, Dreyer’s English, is a book I’ve grown fond of.

I’ve written in the margins of my own copy, and I carry it with me to class when I issue my students a grammar challenge. Dreyer’s text is witty and entertaining. I realize those are adjectives not usually associated with a text about English grammar and usage. 

But here’s the point: English is wonky. It doesn’t conform to many of the “rules” we’ve attempted to put on it, and many of those rules are arbitrary and wonky preferences handed down to students by frustrated English teachers. I usually begin my writing courses by using Mr. Dreyer’s section on Rules and Nonrules. I should point out that I’ve broken several of those nonrules already in this post. That is a subject for another day and another blog post. For now, I want to say a few words about a punctuation mark that is clearly the most misunderstood punctuation mark we have: the apostrophe.

As I’m writing this, we have finished yet another season of Christmas cards and Christmas letters–a genre of autobiography that used to fill mailboxes and now seems limited to a faithful few friends and relatives. 

Christmas cards are, by their very nature, personal messages sent to friends and family, and even business associates via the mail or handed to someone in person. I say “personal messages” because of their intent. When most of our communication is relegated to text messages and social media, these letters fill a gap. 

In my family, we regularly had extended Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings or summer campouts when everyone told their stories and expressed their opinions. I am, of course, revealing my privilege, here. Our family gatherings were loud, filled with laughter, and mostly fun. My poor Uncle Jim, who was a Democrat, had to endure the harangues of two Republicans around the campfire–his father-in-law, and my dad. But Uncle Jim’s camp spaghetti and my dad’s sense of the ridiculous always came through. The Christmas letters seem intended to fill in the gap left by busy lives and long distances between family members.   

The holiday letters we receive feature numerous photographs, often requiring a magnifying glass to ascertain that I don’t, indeed, know many of the people pictured. But they serve as a pictorial history of one family’s year. The letters feature narratives of family events throughout the year–trips to Yellowstone, hiking treks, births, marriages, deaths, surgeries, and other physical mishaps. One memorable Christmas letter years ago detailed some rather personal events ending in a divorce. Even the cards we receive now (thanks to the ease of companies like Shutterstock) function similarly. They are brief generalized greetings with photos that demonstrate how busy a family has been or how grown up their children are, now. Some even function as a parody of the genre. My daughter’s family sent a photo parody of the film Christmas Vacation, last year.  Garrison Keillor once referred to text messages as a way of letting other people know “where I am right now.” These letters and cards are an extended text letting everyone know “where our family is right now.”

As a word and grammar nerd, there is one element of these communiques that I can’t leave alone. I have to pick at it.   

What to make of a Christmas card that comes addressed to “The Allen’s”?

Let me start this discussion by paraphrasing one of my grad school profs who insisted that the apostrophe may be the worst experiment ever foisted on the English language. And let me follow that up by quoting my Grammar for Teachers prof, Mark Lester, who said “I don’t defend the English Language; I just teach it.” 

This is your warning: don’t @ me, people!

Some simple rules. Apostrophes are used for these two purposes in most cases:

1. Contractions. (Not the kind associated with birth that are painful, but another kind, which often seems equally painful–the kind where you connect two words together such as: don’t (do not), isn’t (is not), and so forth. 

Doing so has led to all kinds of confusion with this contraction: “it’s.” It means “it is,” but it is often confused with its–a possessive pronoun that is used like his, hers, theirs (and so on).

And please don’t connect 3 words together: ”should’nt’ve” (should not have, which you indeed should not have done! Unless, as Mr. Dreyer reminds us, your name is Flannery O’Connor.)

2. To indicate possession or ownership of something (The dog’s bone, the cat’s toy, and so on. (And of course, that pesky confusion over “its” now raises its head.)

Back to the addressee of the Christmas card: “The Allen’s”–and what to make of it.

Obviously, in the rush of the holiday season, it is much simpler to write “The Allens” rather than Mr. and Mrs….Or even Angela and Steve Allen. Addressing the card to all the inhabitants named Allen at the address you are compelled to write out saves you time and involves less cramping of your hand. It also covers all the inhabitants named “Allen” currently residing here. My partner, me, our dog, our chickens and ducks (all named), and so on. That seems to be the intent.

But this is not that. It came with an apostrophe. It isn’t a contraction (“Allen is”), so it is clearly a possessive. 

Our last name is Allen. Are you perhaps intending this card for one Allen? And, if so, what possession of that Allen are you addressing this to? The Allen’s guitar? The Allen’s fishtank? And who is “The Allen” in that case?

On second thought, maybe I should start referring to myself as “The Allen.” It has a nice ring of authority.  But what will Steve call himself? “The Other Allen”?

There is a rule in Mr. Dreyer’s text that I will quote. He writes it in all caps, and warns his audience to step back as he does so. (You can imagine this being shouted–from a rooftop or out the front door, if you like.)

“DO NOT EVER ATTEMPT TO USE AN APOSTROPHE TO PLURALIZE A WORD.” 

He also gives the following offer to his readers:

“For a modest monthly fee, I will come to wherever you are, and when in an attempt to pluralize a word, you so much as reach for the apostrophe key, I will slap your hand.” 

I make the same offer to my writing students each semester.

What about how the senders of these cards write their own names?

What to make of: The Smiths’?

Or the Jones’?

Ok, I’m picking on people I love. And, that’s elitist of me. Apostrophes are, as my grad school prof, Dr. Logan Greene insisted, a terrible experiment foisted on a language that is already full of contradictions, exceptions, and weird pronunciations. But we are stuck with them, as I remind my writing students. If we want to make our communications with one another clear, we have to understand how to use them correctly.

So to the Smiths’, the Jones’, and the people sending greetings to the Allen’s–Happy New Year.