Meaning of greengrocer's apostrophe | Babel Free

Definitions

An incorrectly used apostrophe; (especially) one mistakenly used to form the plural of a noun, for example: writing the plural of banana as banana's (a possessive) instead of bananas.

Equivalents

Examples

“[A] flashing neon sign advertising the Pari's Hotel is less an early case of greengrocer's apostrophe than a sardonic Pascalian allusion (pari in French meaning 'bet').”

“It is hardly surprising that these conventions seem to be in rapid collapse, with what has been called "the greengrocer's apostrophe" (apple's 60p, Antique's, linguistic's, and perhaps even mean't, all personally attested) […]”

“The vast majority of letters concerned misplaced apostrophes, of course, in potato’s and lemon’s. But it was interesting, once I started to analyse and sort the examples, to discover that the greengrocer’s apostrophe formed just one depressing category of the overall, total, mind-bogglingly depressing misuse of the apostrophe.”

“When applied in English it produces greengrocer's apostrophes.”

“The Deppenapostroph is not to be confused with the English greengrocer’s apostrophe, when an apostrophe before an ‘s’ is mistakenly used to form the plural of a noun (“a kilo of potato’s”).”

CEFR level