By Cheryl Rushing

On Saturday morning I attended my first meeting of the Gulf Coast Writers Association.  I’ve heard about this organization from other writers that I trust, and the meeting did not disappoint.  In fact, I’ll be joining the group at the next meeting.

Along with old business and new business, they have a speaker, and this week, at least, a lesson.  The lesson was on apostrophes.

There was an editor at the meeting, and she proposed the question to the group (which was about 60 total) asking where would you put the apostrophe in this sentence:

“The food festival was made up of some of the area’s finest restaurants.”

Now, I have put the apostrophe in the proper place, after area, which indicates possession.  The finest restaurants belong to the area, so the area possesses them. 

I was amazed at how many people wanted to argue for no apostrophe.  Professional writers, even!

I am a stickler for punctuation, and I really enjoyed the book Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. It’s a fun and somewhat snooty look at common punctuational errors and their correct usages.

Highly recommended! 

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