Opinion
To apostrophe, or not to apostrophe … Taylor Swift’s new album is dividing internet pedants
Joanne Anderson
The Age's chief desk editorThe world is full of arguments about apostrophes. About farmers’ markets and farmers markets. About all those schools that do or don’t use apostrophes in their title. What’s a student at Melbourne Girls Grammar to make of Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar in the city’s north? Once that student has grown up and become a famous author, should she attend the apostrophe-free Melbourne Writers Festival and boycott the Sydney Writers’ Festival?
As someone who herds words for a living, I never expected to weigh in on a discussion over a decision made by Taylor Swift, but I feel duty-bound to dip into the debate that’s emerged over the title of her new album, The Tortured Poets Department. Could it be that Swift is slyly trying to torture a threatened species of English user, the speckled apostrophe stickler, by offering up neither a poet’s department nor a poets’ department? Articles have been written on this question; social media posts have been posted.
Taylor’s apostrophe-free version.Credit: Instagram
The former would apply if just one tortured poet owned the department, an unlikely scenario given the general impoverishment of tormented souls hoping to be paid for their rhyming couplets. But what about poets’ department? Could that be what’s called for and do we need to fume over the absence of a certain squiggle in Taylor’s version?
Unlike the case of the infamous greengrocer’s apostrophe (three carrot’s, anyone?) and the damaging effect unwarranted tadpole-shaped objects have on garden-variety plurals, what Swift has delivered is a fine version of a reminder that apostrophes can come with nuance, and that sympathising with those trying to do the right thing is what humanity needs.
If the word poets is meant to be merely descriptive, telling us this is a department where tortured poets are studied, Swift can safely stand her ground. If it’s a club where tortured poets can go and be morose together, implying a certain sense of ownership, an apostrophe wouldn’t be out of the question. Note that an apostrophe in the title of the Robin Williams movie Dead Poets Society, however, would have misleadingly suggested it was a zombie flick.
Is Swift appealing to the heavens for an answer on apostrophe use?Credit: Getty Images
Dead or facing torture – no wonder jolly poets are in such short supply. Jolly apostrophe sticklers may also be in short supply, as when nuance comes on the scene, so do the disagreements and possibilities for things to go either way. Rights and wrongs can blur.
The assistant standards editor at The New York Times backed Swift’s choice by saying, “The title is fine without an apostrophe; the Department of Veterans Affairs doesn’t use one. What’s good enough for the official nomenclature of the United States government should be good enough for Taylor Swift.”
However, the apostrophe-possessing Australian Department of Veterans’ Affairs may beg to differ.
We don’t use apostrophes at all in possessive pronouns such as theirs, yours and its. The possessive its had one centuries ago. It was mislaid at some point and now we reserve the squiggle for the contraction of it is, leading many English users to hate their its/it’s to bits. Nor is it official policy to use apostrophes in place names. Fishermans Bend in Melbourne, Badgerys Creek in Sydney and Yorkeys Knob in Cairns are deliberate, not the signs of societal degradation some view them as.
No wonder confusion arises and perpetrators of the greengrocer’s apostrophe bandy it about in the wildest of ways, perhaps in the hope of being right some of the time. There is an argument that we should simplify matters by abandoning apostrophes, or at least do so much of the time. Ditch them and let context be our guide, as it is when we speak. It’s a tempting thought. Tackle climate change and world peace first. After that, we’re coming for you, tadpole-shaped squiggles.
I blame the parents of one Geoffroy Tory for much of the muddlement. In the 16th century, the Frenchman pushed for the use of the apostrophe in his native land as a way to show a letter had been omitted. The darn thing spread to English and took on its broader usage. Given that Geoffroy’s parents couldn’t decide whether to name him Geoffrey or Roy, how could he not grow up to be associated with confusion? It’s all his mum and dad’s fault. Torture indeed, and no poetry in sight.
Joanne Anderson is The Age’s chief desk editor and author of Writely or Wrongly: An unstuffy guide to language stuff (Murdoch Books).
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