Mark Twain’s encounter with a particular foreign tongue inspired an essay called “The Awful German Language.” Welcome to a new feature of this column. We won’t call it “The Awful English Language.” ...

Those of us who respect and appreciate proper apostrophe usage awoke yesterday to some upsetting news: John Richards, one of the most ardent defenders of the correct use of the apostrophe, is giving ...

Apostrophes are the curly floating commas in sentences that usually indicate possession or a contraction. There are a few set phrases and holidays, however, that also use apostrophes. In fact, ...

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 ...

A putative grammar outrage blew up a week ago in Britain when the Conservative-dominated Mid Devon district council announced plans to “abolish the apostrophe.” The signs for Beck’s Square, Blundell’s ...

When it comes to apostrophes, there are a lot of do’s and don’ts. The least-understood and most crucial of all is: Don’t use an apostrophe to form a plural. One luau plus another luau is not two ...

For nearly two decades, John Richards dedicated his life to protecting an endangered species: the correctly placed apostrophe. As the founder of the Apostrophe Protection Society, he waged war against ...

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John Richards, 96, founded the society 18 years ago to fight the "much abused" punctuation mark. He's ending the group because he says folks these days don't care about using apostrophes correctly.