November 2003 Archives

The so-called grocer's apostrophe, where it is used incorrectly in plurals, is one of the most common mistakes made by native speakers in English. Why is it that something so simple causes so many problem? The apostrophe only has two functions, yet it seems that many people leave school with little or no idea of either of them.

The use of 'less people', etc, is now so common in British English that there seems little point in claiming it is an error. Should it still be taught as wrong?