I was on a mission. It was dicey. It was bold. It had cloak-and-dagger undertones, although the weather was too balmy for a cloak, and rather than a sharp weapon I was wielding a Sharpie Permanent Marker.<\/p>\n
Let me set the scene. I live in a charming little tourist trap in Northern California. A couple of years ago the town built a state-of-the-art downtown public restroom. This smallish structure is sleek and sturdy: red brick with gray granite base molding and thick translucent glass-brick detailing.<\/p>\n
It opened to great fanfare, but right from the start, something was amiss. And I came to realize that if I didn\u2019t fix it, who would?<\/p>\n
I will leave it to my fellow nitpickers to determine whether what I did was the act of a righteous crusader or a nuisance with too much time on his hands.<\/p>\n
The two entrances to the facility each feature a white-tile sign. One says \u201cMENS RESTROOM<\/span>\u201d and the other says \u201cWOMENS RESTROOM.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n For months I walked by those illiterate signs, trying not to look. And as I\u2019d pass, it seemed the signs would taunt me: \u201cHey, grammar boy,\u201d they\u2019d sneer. \u201cApostrophes? We don\u2019t need no stinkin\u2019 apostrophes!\u201d<\/p>\n Finally I snapped. One sparkling summer evening I grabbed my Sharpie and fairly galloped downtown. I made my way through a swarm of out-of-towners and painstakingly affixed the requisite punctuation mark to each sign.<\/p>\n I felt I was striking a blow for all long-suffering sticklers who have to stand by helplessly as innocent apostrophes are routinely abused and neglected. Believe me, the sight of MEN\u2019S<\/span> and WOMEN\u2019S<\/span> has never been so sweet.<\/p>\n My deed went unnoticed by the early-evening crowd, most of them woozy from exorbitant gourmet burgers and extortionate Hawaiian ice cream. But had I been arrested for defacing public property, I\u2019d have said: \u201cOfficer, this is not vandalism. The vandals are the ones who put up those brain-dead signs. What sort of terrible example is this town setting for young people, or visitors from other countries who are trying to learn English?\u201d<\/p>\n I hope you don\u2019t see me as one of those so-called taggers\u2014no-talent grandstanders who go around sabotaging public property with their garish, illegible, or vulgar graffiti. On the contrary, what I did was more like removing a road hazard. That is just good citizenship.<\/p>\n Try telling it to the town\u2019s maintenance department. Every time I walk by the building now, I notice my apostrophes getting fainter\u2014someone is rubbing them out. In what bizarre universe does that constitute civic improvement?<\/p>\n I have a feeling that those signs haven\u2019t seen the last of me and my Sharpie.<\/p>\n \u2014Tom Stern<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pop Quiz<\/strong><\/p>\n The following were taken from actual public signs. Can you fix what ails them? The answers are below.<\/p>\n 1. \u201cNo dog\u2019s allowed except guide dog\u2019s\u201d<\/p>\n 2. \u201cEmployee\u2019s must wash there hands before returning to work\u201d<\/p>\n 3. \u201cAmazing value everyday\u201d<\/p>\n 4. \u201cViolators will be towed and find $50\u201d<\/p>\n 5. \u201cUse as part of a prudent diet together with regular excercise\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pop Quiz Answers<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. \u201cNo dogs<\/em> allowed except guide dogs<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n 2. \u201cEmployees<\/em> must wash their<\/em> hands before returning to work\u201d<\/p>\n 3. \u201cAmazing value every day<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n 4. \u201cViolators will be towed and fined<\/em> $50\u201d<\/p>\n 5. \u201cUse as part of a prudent diet together with regular exercise<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was on a mission. It was dicey. It was bold. It had cloak-and-dagger undertones, although the weather was too balmy for a cloak, and rather than a sharp weapon I was wielding a Sharpie Permanent Marker. Let me set the scene. I live in a charming little tourist trap in Northern California. A couple […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,25,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apostrophes","category-humor","category-possessives"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}