OK. maybe i am crazy. some people have the craziest pet peeves. i’m not here to judge. cos mine is just as crazy. i HATE – absolutely HATE – when people use a single open quote instead of an apostrophe.

i can understand how it happens. if you are typing, say in word, indesign, whatever and you type the phrase “shoot ’em up,” the program, if set for smart quotes, will think that you wanted a single open quote before em; it doesn’t know that it’s actually supposed to be an apostrophe to replace the T and H that are missing from the word THEM. So you have to manually go in there and force it to be an apostrophe.

easy enough.

then how the hell does it keep happening. i can forgive (well, at least ignore) the various crap newsletters or other non-professional pubs that do it. but, come on. check out the poster to the left. that’s paul gimatti. he’s not exactly “low rent” – nor are the other stars with their own posters. clive owen? no. monica belluci? well. but at any rate, why the fuck is there a SOQ where there should be an apostrophe? why?! WHY!?!?!

I grow tired of asking this, so this is the last time: “When will people pay attention?!?!” Ok. I’m over-dramatic. But it’s really, really annyoing. It’s like when “40-year-old Virgin” was “40 year-old virgin.”