Apostrophe Atrocity

“All Make’s Serviced” said a roadside billboard advertising the MOT facility of a local garage the other day. “Fish & Chip’s”, said a similar sign round the corner in an effort to entice passers by into clogging up their arteries with delicious battered comestibles.

I’m no apostrophe Nazi (well, maybe a mild one), and I can forgive Mr Carmechanic and Mr Chipshopowner their faux pas on the basis that frying fish and tinkering with machinery are probably more their fields of expertise than punctuation. In the Bath branch of Mothercare later that afternoon however, a large colourful sign shouted “Lets play!”

How many approval rounds must the artwork have gone through before being sent for print and how many pairs of eyes must have been cast over it? Surely someone somewhere should have pointed out that it should be “Let’s”.

As if that wasn’t enough bad English for the day, the Pay & Display machine back at the car park gratefully displayed the message “Thank you. £5.00 payed” Aaargh! As my wonderwife said – “Schoolboy error…”