Happy National Grammar Day!

How will YOU celebrate?

Not something to celebrate

Did you know that, for a long time, the word celebrate wasn't something that a lot of people, well, celebrated?

During the mid-sixteenth century, the English language underwent a shift from Middle English to Modern English, and with that came an intellectual battle called "The Inkhorn Controversy." An inkhorn was literally a horn used for holding ink, and the most learned men got just a tad carried away inventing new words (celebrate, for example). They were doing this largely to sound important, and opponents decried them.

Other words created in an attempt to get an edge above the rest? Encyclopedia. Exaggerate. Immaturity. (Too bad ironic isn't one.)

Apostrophe catastrophe

If you folks haven't noticed, there's nothing that makes me cringe like a misplaced apostrophe. (Book's for sale! Kid's eat free!) But in some cases, it turns out the problem is more about style than someone not paying attention in English class.

Ask around different publications, and you'll get a variety of answers as to how you should properly punctuate something like "farmers market." Apostrophe before the s? After? Let's have anarchy and go without it? If you're not following a style guide that's telling you what to do, here's a good way to decide: In some cases, the farmers actually own the market, in which case, the word is possessive and you'd use an apostrophe (location would depend on whether it's one or multiple farmers). In most cases, however, the farmers just rent stalls. In that case, farmers serves more as an adjective, and you can leave it alone.

Another example is "writers strike." Do the writers own the strike? In most cases, no, so you can leave it unpunctuated.

By the way, I just found out there's a blog called "The Land of the Misplaced Apostrophe's." (Cringe!) I got super excited thinking there was another blogger out there with whom I could bond, but I then I found out it's actually just someone ranting about everything from Glee to drag queens to graduation ceremonies. Oh well ...