The standing committee for the Preservation of Perfect and Exact English discharged this announcement in its latest newsletter:
At long last, PPEE has concluded the apostrophe no longer necessary. 'Itll be phased out beginning this year and gone from the prescriptive canon by the end of the decade.' The first phase will focus on its use in contractions, or rather its elimination as shown variously here.
Declaring the apostrophes obsolescence* comes as a result of years of misuse and outright neglect, according to the committee. 'The lofty place of the apostrophe in lines of text left vacant by willful populists and others shall now be deemed correct. Thus, the practice of English 'wordsmiths', who have refused to join the ranks of those who would conserve the language in its pure and original state, shall, alas, rule.'
In its action, the committee has succumbed to 'ponderous evidence of what writers do', not the pressures exerted by 'recent tracts that have flooded our lobbies by descriptivists. Such would be to concede authority to a competitor society, albeit an unnamed, unofficial one.'
Native speaking members of the academy already decry the change(s), while open-punctuation enthusiasts deem it long overdue. Others indeed have responded with the level of concern they have shown all along for this punctuation mark, ignorance.
Fortunately for newcomers to English, 'we have moved beyond any further debate'. To err on the side of simplicity will no longer beget furrowed frowns nor give cause for red pens to indicate where a bit of black ink should have appeared.
The following is a rough translation of the above bit of bogus and a discussion of the proposal sans inflation. Would that some committee or society could actually bring order to a sometimes disorderly language as well as help it--and thereby ourselves--evolve as it could or should. Lacking that body, we can always imagine.
Stuck occasionally between and above two letters in standard English text, or sometimes forlorn by itself at the beginning or end of a word, the apostrophe is easy to overlook and sometimes not easy to decode. To wit, what does apostrophes' in the title refer to? Have you also noticed it's mistaken application? or the absence from the possessive adjective its, or even the way some expressions should but do not invoke it, as in the Royal Firemans Union or years end?
The apostrophe is most often used to show the omission of a letter or letters.+ For example, I'm for I am. It is also used to achieve phonetic effect (which'er for whichever, ne'er for never), or to indicate possession (Mary's book).
The point of the edict from the committee is, except in cases where there is strong cause for confusion, cant we do away with some of these uses altogether? You did not stumble on that cant in the previous sentence, did you? Case in point. Lets admit that we would likely stumble on neer (for ne'er), not only for how to pronounce the word but also for whether it was indeed a word or contained a typographical error. And let it be noted that the apostrophe in possessives is already disappearing, which warrants a separate discussion.
De-contracting, however, is based on the notion that we already know these utterances that sound and function effectively as standalone words. We should be able to recognize them easily in text. A move toward greater simplicity in form is strengthened in that most contractions when deprived of the punctuation are not confused with other words spelled or sounding the same, either because there are no other words or the context makes it quite clear what has been meant. Thus, goes the argument, havent they, apostrophes, especially in contractions, outlived their usefulness? (Anticipate PPEEs next elimination, certain uses of the comma. Oops, sorry about that.)
To see how this works, consider the intractable its/it's. Untying this knot to see the common sense of just plain its can illustrate how other apostrophic puzzles can be treated.
In writings surprisingly by those who should know better, it's is used where its is called for and vice versa. We may have fewer writers and editors who are good proofreaders today, but this is beside the point. Its and it's are so similar in appearance on a page as to all but demand simplification. Plus, because of how often it's is an error, the sense of a sentence is never compromised if the punctuation is missing. A few readers may hiccup once in the flow of meaning-making until the convention becomes standard. Its is ubiquitous already, but its solidity as a standard is unsteady because of an existing rule/usage some are aware of, having to do with something that looks almost the same. That is it's, it is or has, detracts from the feeling of correctness for the correct usage of its.
The idea again is to eliminate apostrophes in contractions except in cases of confusion. If its can be easily decoded when appearing in writing, correctly or incorrectly used, might not other contractions be seen in the same way? Its/it's raises a number of basic questions the responses to which may be sufficient rationalization for implementing other de-contractions.
A. The dog ate its dinner.
B. Its dinner time for the dog.
C. Its been a long time since he ate.
1. Most readers not purists. The proofreaders among us might see the misuse of its in B and C and experience an interruption in the flow of their reading. "Stop, go back, how is that again?" But even purists as well as the rest of us--dont we just keep reading on? We get it, the meaning, in the same way we get it's in spoken English where we never see the punctuation.
2. Reading method no deterrence. If you are a subvocalizer, reading to yourself as if reading out loud, you wont skip a beat. Again, the out-loud analogue.
If you read by seeing and comprehending letters and words and chunks of text as images, then do you stop and question when it's appears incorrectly? Not likely. Text-as-image readers tend to be faster than subvocalizers, focusing less on the form and appearance of the language in its bits and pieces and more on meaning that is quickly accessible. These readers dont lose the sense of what they see because of a portrait's detail.
3. Presence matters not. The apostrophe, in the instance of it's, is such a small thing to see or attend to. In any instance of seeing or not seeing the ', the apostrophe is an infinitesimal component part of one of the languages shortest, most frequently used words. Just a jot, an atomic particle.
If the missing apostrophe in the it-is or it-has construction causes little to no interruption of flow, is not missed except by a few, and deters us not from making sense of what we read, are these applicable to other common contractions?
The weakest argument, or rationalization, above has to do with the confusion factor. If the apostrophe in contractions is phased out and all texts become standardized in appearance, where context rules for contractions and not the punctuation mark, the flow/something-is-missing-here problem goes away. What may not go away is whether or not we can easily grasp what is meant. And after all, that is the object of text written. How can we assess the magnitude of this problem? Although it may introduce other complications and discussions: What if we make a subjective assessment of how confusing it would be to drop the apostrophe from the most commonly contracted forms?
Let
0 mean not at all confusing (no other common word in the language)
1 = context would almost always make meaning clear
2 = minor possibility of confusion
3 = confusing but worth omitting the apostrophe
4 = problematic, perhaps justifying keeping the apostrophe
Assessments (of the form rating plus comment)
Id: 1; may be confused with the id (psychology) or id (identification)
Ill: 2; this de-contracted form would always begin with an upper case letter, and only confuse in the context of illness and placement at the beginning of a sentence, or perhaps as part of a proper noun/name for an illness (rare)
Im: 0
Ive: 0; example confusion, the short form for the proper name Ivy (rare)
aint: 0; this word--and it is a word if not an official contraction--always indicates less formal register
arent: 0
cant: 2; consider cant as angle, inclination, kick, etc.
couldnt: 0
couldve: 1; readers would not confuse with the non-standard "could of"
didnt: 0
doesnt: 0
dont: 0
hasnt: 0
hed: 1; may be seen as typographical error or misspelling (e.g., had)
hell: 3; example, "Hell go to hell" (versus the word as proper noun in direct address, "Hell, go to hell" (gotta be rare!)
hes: 1; could be confused with word as word in a plural sense
howd: 1; may be seen as typographical error or misspelling (e.g., howdy)
howll: 1; may be seen as typographical error or misspelling (e.g., howl)
hows: 1; could be confused with word as word in a plural sense
isnt: 0
its: possible touchstone for de-contracting (see above)
lets: 0; most often appears at the beginning of a sentence followed by the infinitive form of a verb
mightnt: 0
mightve: 0; would not confuse with the non-standard "might of"
mustnt: 0
mustve: 0
shant: 0
shed: 1; minor possibility of confusing with outbuilding
shell: (not rated--a concordance or corpus might be helpful in determining confusion factor)
shes: 1; could be confused with word as word in a plural sense
shouldnt: 0
shouldve: 0; would not confuse with should of
tarnt: (not rated, not a common contraction except in vernacular rendered in text; instance of an outlier; further assessment needed, maybe)
thatll: 0
thats: 1; could be confused with word as word in a plural sense
theres: 1; could be confused with word as word in a plural sense
theyd: 0
theyll: 0
theyre: 0; already has possible confusion with there, but in text this is clear
theyve: 0
tis: 0; infrequently used
tisnt: 0; infrequently used
twas: 0; infrequently used
wasnt: 0
wed: 3; may be confused with abbreviation of Wednesday
well: 3; (further assessment needed)
were: 3; (further assessment needed)
werent: 0
whatd: 0
whats: 1; could be confused with word as word in a plural sense
whend: 0
whenll: 0
whens: 1; could be confused with word as word in a plural sense
whered: 0
wherell: 0
wheres: 1; could be confused with word as word in a plural sense
whod: 0
wholl: 0
whos: 1; could be confused with word as word in a plural sense; could be taken as typographical error--whose
whyd: 0
whyll: 0
whys: 1; could be confused with word as word in a plural sense
wont: 1; wont as custom or habit is not frequently used
wouldnt: 0
wouldve: 0; readers wouldnt confuse with the non-standard "would of"
youd: 0
youll: 0
youre: 1; already possible confusion with your
youve: 0
You get the idea. Note that in all but a few instances, the ratings here do not reach the point where a de-contracted form jeopardizes meaning. (A "decontracted form's jeopardizing meaning" is already dying out as noted above.) Assuming that the ratings here reflect actual low confusion risks, and noting register in the comments as another possible factor to confuse, we can dismiss both of these points by reasoning that soon-to-be "ubiquitous standard usage" will result in little to no confusion and context will almost always make usage and therefore meaning clear. But let this conclusion here invite additional independent assessments of these forms along the same lines. The results would validate, or not, what has been presented thus far. Youre invited.
Comes the subject of register. Is not in formal written English is often preferred over isn't. The use of the contracted form signals informality. The proposal here is for the elimination of contractions in text. Just as in other matters, we can differentiate to clarify. Is not can continue in formal English. Isnt can continue to appear in less formal writing. The proposal is not to replace it is with isnt in the contexts where the former should appear by practice (i.e., convention) or prescription. And to suggest something like a re-alignment of register for like-wording-and-meaning forms is another, quite separate matter.
Such a small thing, this apostrophe in contractions. Why bother make any change? Is there some compelling reason beyond (mostly) the forces and reasons discussed here? Perhaps not. Surely there are bigger matters for what we say to make sense. Clearly communicating is the wholistic object, not nits and gnats.
Context should indicate unambiguously here how demise in the title should be understood: to do away with. The notion of bequeath or to hand down is not the intended meaning, or is it? Well, indeed it can be, in addition to the dominant meaning given by most of the context created thus far.
Proposals comprise what might be, and if reasonable, acceptable, and so forth, what beneficiaries will have for their good. De-contracted forms of the most common expressions in written English promise to simplify, in a small way, what all but a few can easily decode and readily understand. For those who are momentarily stopped in the face of the new, whether because of reverence for tradition, the obligation of habit, or the stubbornness of preference, can soon adjust as the practice becomes ubiquitous and standard.
Thus it is that language in form can represent, convey, and render opulent our world with economy of expression. To place the apostrophe high in the line to denote what is specifically-and-only has seen better days. It no longer needs our obeisance, especially in contractions. We have evolved, as has the language, to greater heights. And we have learned that context and meaning can and should be deconstructed with some little effort in order to appreciate the fullness of what can be or indeed intended to be communicated. One reading's demise does away with; another's brings into relief dimensions and textures that heighten and enrich experience and sense.
Text-messaging inventions, the trend toward open punctuation, the development in global or international English, among other phenomena, suggest fewer boundaries to what we can say and how it appears on paper. Apostrophes demise? Why not? Lets clean house so our beneficiaries can develop and evolve without unnecessary bits of black ink. Respecting yet surmounting convention, therein lies the creative and a world to discover. One small step. Were but a ' away.
---
* The subject of a gerund, according to many college-level style manuals for essays and academic writing, should be a possessive. In an unpublished paper, PhDr. Marcela Malá, M.A. observes that this rule is not observed in practice. Copy available upon request.
+There are other uses of the apostrophe. For example, to show the plural of a number (e.g., There are four 4's in that serial number.). However, recently published and specialized or discipline-oriented style manuals have dropped the apostrophe for this use (e.g., 4s).
