Dictionary

greengrocer's apostrophe en · NOUN

Etymology

From the relatively common misusage of apostrophes seen on the placards used at greengroceries.

Meanings

1. 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.
   • 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. 2003 November 6, Lynne Truss, “The Tractable Apostrophe”, in Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, London: Profile Books Ltd, →ISBN, page 49:
   • [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'). 1993, British Film Institute, Sight and Sound Film Review:
   • 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) […] 1998, Richard M. Hogg et al., The Cambridge History of the English Language, page 121:
   • When applied in English it produces greengrocer's apostrophes. 2004, Joy Burrough-Boenisch, Righting English That's Gone Dutch:
   • 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”). 2024 October 7, Philip Oltermann, “Germans decry influence of English as ‘idiot’s apostrophe’ gets official approval”, in The Guardian:

Forms

Relateds

apothecary's Latin

Synonyms

idiot's apostrophe · rogue apostrophe

Translations (4)

fr apostrophe mal placée (incorrectly used apostrophe) · de Idiotenapostroph (incorrectly used apostrophe) · de Deppenapostroph (incorrectly used apostrophe) · pl błędny apostrof (incorrectly used apostrophe)