Happy Mother's Day and Apostrophes

Happy Mothers’ Day to all you yummy mummies out there – or should that be Happy Mother’s Day? Yes, I know – on a day when I should just be wallowing in the lurve and putting my feet up, here I am obsessing about punctuation. Typical! Well, I have been well and truly pampered today, and it was when I was opening my lovely card from my four-year-old daughter that I remembered this card which I made for my own wonderful mum wayyyy back when I was about 11:

When my mum showed it to me recently, what do you think was the first thing I said? Not, ‘Ah, wasn’t I a sweetie,’ or even, ‘What were you thinking with that wallpaper?’ Oh no, the first thing I said was: ‘Where’s the bloody apostrophe? Did I learn nothing at school?’

Such a promising child, and clearly very loving to give her mum a hand-made card like this, so where did it all go wrong? When did I get caught up in the whole apostrophe-annoyance thing? Because truthfully, I can’t drive past a sign that reads, for example, Buckingham Tapestry’s, without screaming at the top of my voice, ‘Buckingham Tapestry’s WHAT?’

It’s a blessing (that I’m good at punctuation – handy in a writer), and a curse (for my husband, who on hearing me tut or huff when out and about, sighs and knows exactly what I’m about to say). It’s a blessing for my daughter, who at four already knows what an apostrophe is, and today she wrote out a play invitation to her toy’s party (not an invite – call it an invite and she’ll happily correct you and tell you invite is a verb not a noun, poor child), and actually put a little dot in the right place in Monkey’s. How amazing is that? So maybe my obsession does have its uses. Anyway, it’s Mother’s Day in this house, because it’s all about ME!

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