The 'idiot's apostrophe' makes headlines in Germany

In French, to show that someone possesses something, you use their word for “of,” which is “de”: La plume de ma tante. Spanish works the same way: La venganza de Moctezuma. Italian, too: Buca di Beppo. I don’t know as much about German, but the internet tells me that in many cases you form the possessive by just adding an S at the end of the noun: Angelas Mercedes.

And then there’s English.

A simple “of”? Sure, we can use it in rare constructions: A friend of Bill. But usually we don’t.

A simple S? No can do. That’s our system for forming plurals. Marias means more than one Maria. Not that Maria owns something.

An apostrophe plus S? Sure, sometimes, but only when you’re talking about a singular: the cat’s tail. When your noun is plural, you usually add an apostrophe with no S: the cats’ tails. But that’s only when the plural is made plural with an S. When it’s plural and doesn’t end with S, you add S plus an apostrophe just as you would for a singular: children’s books.

From the outside looking in, this can seem like an odd system. Illogical. Some might even say idiotic.

That’s exactly what they’re saying in Germany, where the “idiot’s apostrophe,” as some call it, just got official approval.

Amid a long-term trend of businesses using these English possessive apostrophes on signs — like Rosi’s Bar instead of the correct Rosis Bar — the Council for German Orthography, which regulates how the German language is taught in schools and used in government, gave its blessing to the Deppenapostroph, or “idiot’s apostrophe.” It’s now in the council’s official style guide, meaning it’s no longer wrong in German.

Some German speakers are pretty unhappy about it, saying that their language is caving in to the influence of English. One German who was quoted in the media said this apostrophe “made his hair stand on end.” But some German language experts are more forgiving, pointing out that German already allowed these apostrophes to prevent confusion, for example to keep straight possessive “Andrea’s” and the common men’s name “Andreas.”

I, too, have some thoughts. You can read about them here in my recent column.

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