He ventures out under cover of darkness. His mission: to correct the wrongs he sees around him during the day. This unidentified man is committed to ridding the English city of Bristol of punctuation errors in its shop signs.
Some call him the Grammar Vigilante. In an interview with the BBC, he revealed that he is an engineer by trade and a family man. But beneath that common-man appearance lies a determined stickler for accurate written communication.
Armed with a variety of stickers and a self-styled device nicknamed the Apostrophiser (it enables him to reach lettering on elevated signs), he covers misplaced apostrophes. He inserts missing ones.
“Authenticity at it’s Best” one slogan read. Knowing that “it’s” is a contraction for “it is” or “it has,” our hooded hero removed the erroneous apostrophe, leaving behind the possessive pronoun “its”—even if a small gap between the letters still remains.
A double error at a manicure shop really grated on the Grammar Vigilante. “Amys Nail’s” was “just wrong,” he said. Now passersby can breathe a sigh of relief with the possessive and plural appropriately presented as “Amy’s Nails.”
When asked if his alterations were a crime—such as vandalism—he told the BBC he didn’t think so. He says the real crime is putting apostrophes in the wrong places to begin with. Cambridge Motors might agree. The business owner thanked the mysterious grammarian for removing a superfluous apostrophe in “Motor’s” and leaving the accurate plural.
Despite all his efforts, it seems confusion between possessive and plural nouns and possessive pronouns will be with us always. This crusader has been at it for 13 years—and there’s no end in sight yet.
(Photo: The unidentified man adds the apostrophe to the word “Gentleman’s” on a clothing store sign. BBC)
