I’ve been saying it for years: the apostrophe is probably the most cruelly abused of any punctuation mark.

Think about it. Unlike the semicolon, which somewhat justifiably confuses the heck out of people because it’s not used very often, the apostrophe is so common that I’ve already used it three times in this post. You can hardly go a sentence without using an apostrophe these days, and it’s about time we started defending the poor things from the horrendous abuse people heap on them.

I’ve done it myself, when I’m in a hurry–it’s a sort of a brain-typo to think “its” and write “it’s,” and I certainly try to correct myself, even if it’s in a forum where correct grammar is as foreign as kuchen to a southwest Minnesotan.

But seriously, people. Protect the apostrophes.

They’re our friends, they do their sacred duty in creating lovely possessives and there is no reason to make them suffer.

It’s your duty, you’re on the hook for this one.

Join the fight. Take back the internet for the poor, benighted apostrophe.