greengrocer's apostrophe

plural greengrocer's apostrophes · humorous plural greengrocers apostrophe's · alternative archaic greengrocer's-apostrophe · alternative nonstandard greengrocers' apostrophe

1. An incorrectly used apostrophe; (especially) one mistakenly used to form the plural of a noun, for example: writing the plural of banana as banana's (a possessive) instead of bananas.

   When applied in English it produces greengrocer's apostrophes.

   2004, Joy Burrough-Boenisch, Righting English That's Gone Dutch

   4 more examples

   [A] flashing neon sign advertising the Pari's Hotel is less an early case of greengrocer's apostrophe than a sardonic Pascalian allusion (pari in French meaning 'bet').

   1993, British Film Institute, Sight and Sound Film Review

   It is hardly surprising that these conventions seem to be in rapid collapse, with what has been called "the greengrocer's apostrophe" (apple's 60p, Antique's, linguistic's, and perhaps even mean't, all personally attested) […]

   1998, Richard M. Hogg et al., The Cambridge History of the English Language, page 121

   The vast majority of letters concerned misplaced apostrophes, of course, in potato’s and lemon’s. But it was interesting, once I started to analyse and sort the examples, to discover that the greengrocer’s apostrophe formed just one depressing category of the overall, total, mind-bogglingly depressing misuse of the apostrophe.

   2003 November 6, Lynne Truss, “The Tractable Apostrophe”, in Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, London: Profile Books Ltd, →ISBN, page 49

   The Deppenapostroph is not to be confused with the English greengrocer’s apostrophe, when an apostrophe before an ‘s’ is mistakenly used to form the plural of a noun (“a kilo of potato’s”).

   2024 October 7, Philip Oltermann, “Germans decry influence of English as ‘idiot’s apostrophe’ gets official approval”, in The Guardian

   Synonyms: idiot's apostrophe, rogue apostrophe