A Word, Please: In a nod to English, the ‘idiot’s apostrophe’ gets sanctioned in Germany

In French, to show that someone possesses something, you use their word for “of,” which is “de”: La plume de ma tante. Spanish works the same way: La venganza de Moctezuma. Italian, too: Buca di Beppo. I don’t know as much about German, but the internet tells me that in many cases you form the possessive by just adding an S at the end of the noun: Angelas Mercedes.

And then there’s English.

A simple “of”? Sure, we can use it in rare constructions: A friend of Bill. But usually we don’t.

A simple S? No can do. That’s our system for forming plurals. Marias means more than one Maria. Not that Maria owns something.

An apostrophe plus S? Sure, sometimes, but only when you’re talking about a singular: the cat’s tail. When your noun is plural, you usually add an apostrophe with no S: the cats’ tails. But that’s only when the plural is made plural with an S. When it’s plural and doesn’t end with S, you add S plus an apostrophe just as you would for a singular: children’s books.

From the outside looking in, this can seem like an odd system. Illogical. Some might even say idiotic.

That’s exactly what they’re saying in Germany, where the “idiot’s apostrophe,” as some call it, just got official approval.

Amid a long-term trend of businesses using these English possessive apostrophes on signs — like Rosi’s Bar instead of the correct Rosis Bar — the Council for German Orthography, which regulates how the German language is taught in schools and used in government, gave its blessing to the Deppenapostroph, or “idiot’s apostrophe.” It’s now in the council’s official style guide, meaning it’s no longer wrong in German.

Some German speakers are pretty unhappy about it, saying that their language is caving in to the influence of English. One German who was quoted in the media said this apostrophe “made his hair stand on end.” But some German language experts are more forgiving, pointing out that German already allowed these apostrophes to prevent confusion, for example to keep straight possessive “Andrea’s” and the common men’s name “Andreas.”

I, too, have some thoughts.

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Our system for forming possessives isn’t great. One big problem is that we use the apostrophe-plus-s combo not just for possessives but also for contractions of “is” and “has.” “Bob’s here,” for example, isn’t possessive. It means Bob is here. “Who’s been to Germany” means “who has been to Germany.”

Pronouns like “who,” “me,” “you,” “it,” etc. have their own possessive forms that contain no apostrophes: whose, my, your, its, etc. This leads to a lot of mistakes. Even people who know better can carelessly use the apostrophe and S with “who,” as in, “Who’s car is parked outside?” That’s wrong. It should be “whose car.” Then there’s the most common apostrophe mistake of all: using “it’s” as a possessive: The dog wagged it’s tail. That should be “its.” With the apostrophe, it means “it is” or “it has.”

Our system also makes it very tempting to shove an apostrophe where it doesn’t belong in some plurals: The Ricci’s are coming over for dinner. He drank too many mai tai’s. The lineup included several singing duo’s. None of those should have apostrophes.

But you can’t blame people for getting confused because, in English, sometimes we do allow apostrophes to form plurals, like in “mind your P’s and Q’s” and “He got all A’s in school.”

On top of all that, sometimes rule books contradict each other on how to use apostrophes. For example, in book-editing style, you’d write “James’s car,” but in most news media, the correct form is “James’ car.”

This messy system can fairly be called “idiotic.” But “idiot’s apostrophe”? Possessive “idiot’s”? Not fair. In English, mastery of the apostrophe requires advanced study most of us don’t get in school. So you can say our possessive apostrophe is idiotic, but don’t call its users “idiots.” “Geniuses” is more like it.

June Casagrande is the author of “The Joy of Syntax: A Simple Guide to All the Grammar You Know You Should Know.” She can be reached at [email protected].