Punctuation Vigilante

Taking a page from Lynne Truss' book Eats, Shoots and Leaves, I actually corrected a sign at a coffee shop this weekend. Someone at the shop wrote "Salad's" instead of "Salads" on the menu board in front of the counter. While the guy was making my turtle mocha, I erased the apostrophe between the d and the s. Does anyone know why? That's right: Putting the apostrophe between the d and the s makes the word both singular and possessive, as if to say, "The following items on this menu board belong to this particular salad. If you find them, please return them to the above mentioned salad." In actuality, the word on the board was intended to be plural and was referring to the many salad options available.

To Punctuation Vigilantes (or PV's) like myself, this was something I could not ignore. I had to leap into action and save the day. I felt like I was doing the internet cafe employees and visitors a service by correcting the grammatical offense. But I did so silently. I made no remarks to the employees. I didn't want to offend them or make them feel less then grammatical than me. That is not the PV way. My next project is to not only correct grammar, but also correct spelling mistakes on MySpace and Facebook. This will be a full time job.