GREENGROCERS AND THE APOSTROPHE
To stop us looking down our noses
at greengrocers, the man proposes
to phase out the apostrophe,
so cuke's and strawberry's will be
no worse than Kings Cross, Potters Bar,
Harrods or Boots. The answer's Ah,
they would. Metric correctness may
deserve to be the light of day;
the niggling point whose rules confuse
by more case law at every use
unclear contraction and possession
may well be ripe for supersession;
apostrophe-free writing might
by twenty years of school be right.
Correct non-users would therefore
look down their noses all the more.
As for greengrocers, they'd maintain
stubbornly their right to remain
writing their way, and stand their ground
to their last tittle-jot and pound.
I appear to have written this poem in the spring of 2001, probably in response to a Guardian article advocating as summarised in the first few lines. I published it over a succession of tweets in December 2019. I occasionally feel the urge to throw it into some online discussion or other, so it might as well be made available here.
