Of all the things we disagree on, the possessive apostrophe might be the oddest.
Harbour versus bay. Ferries versus trams. Kings Cross versus Southern Cross. Ever since infancy, Sydney and Melbourne have listed their differences, from sandstone to bluestone, yet the category I least expected was the possessive apostrophe.
Speaking of flies, and punctuation, which phrase is right: a little used fly swatter, or a little-used fly swatter? Maybe a festival writer can save us. Or a pest controller, since the answer lies in the swatter itself. Hyphens, like apostrophes, pack that sort of punch. Thanks to one pen-stroke, the swatter can be minuscule, and therefore second-hand, or a swatter of indeterminate size showing scant evidence of splatted victims.
Cormac McCarthy, the American giant of literature, begrudged punctuation, or weird little marks as he called them. Apostrophes, for Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, were “uncouth bacilli”, yet even the laureates had to toe the line now and then. If I dedicated this week’s column to my parents, Buddha and Kylie Minogue, you’d be forgiven for your brain’s meltdown. The trigger is the Oxford comma missing in action, that serial squiggle to keep listed items discrete.
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Is your punctuation a little bit more Sydney or Melbourne?Of all the things we disagree on, the possessive apostrophe might be the oddest.
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