“Ignorance has Won”

“I didn’t find half a dozen people,” John Richards (96) said on his website about the past in his search for associates to join him.

Mr. Richards started a society after seeing the “same mistakes over and over again” in the usage of the Apostrophe. He had hoped he would find half a dozen people who felt the same way and join him.

“Instead, within a month of my plaint appearing in a national newspaper, I received over 500 letters of support, not only from all corners of the United Kingdom, but also from America, Australia, France, Sweden, Hong Kong and Canada.”

And the rules?

Apostrophes are used to denote a missing letter or letters and are used to denote possession. Apostrophes are never ever used to denote plurals.

John Richards started the Apostrophe Protection Society in 2001 to make sure the “much-abused” punctuation mark was being used correctly. After 18 years, he will be closing down the society.

Fewer people and organizations are caring about the correct use of the apostrophe in the English Language.

Apostrophe society shuts down because ‘ignorance and laziness have won,” Tim Baker, Evening Standard, December 1, 2019