Mr & Mrs

No this is not some post announcing a wedding anniversary, nor is it a piece about gay marriage, it's an observation about grammar, coincidence and how life could have been very different, especially for women. It occurred to me the other day how the meaning of a word changes with a simple apostrophe, and in one example gives an insight into traditional beliefs that some people hold.

In English, the apostrophe is used in two ways, either as a gap between two words:

• she'll (she will)
• they're (they are)

Or the apostrophe is used to show ownership of a word:

• Sarah's scarf (a scarf belonging to Sarah)
• John's bike (a bike belonging to John)

Many people use apostrophes to denote plurals of words. As far as I know, this is wrong. I try to avoid this myself for that reason.

• The road's are busy today (The roads are busy today)
• Can't see the forest for the tree's (Can't see the forest for the trees)

So given this understanding of how English works, and where (not) to use an apostrophe, imagine adding an apostrophe to this well known phrase:

• Mr & Mrs (Mr & Mr's) or (Mister & Mister's)

It has no word after it to become a shortening apostrophe. It does not quite fit the ownership rule because it has no following word, but it does read like:

• Owned by Mister
• Property of Mister

This accidental observation or coincidence may be an insight into how many cultures view women as property of their husbands rather than equal partners in a relationship. It does bring a new light to:

• Whatever is mine, is mine and whatever is yours is mine.

You could joke that there was no apostrophe in the original texts, but a fly being squashed on the wrong part of the page made it appear as an apostrophe, and history has taken the path we currently experience because of that fly. If it had died on another page, or another part of the page, it would never have been interpreted as an apostrophe.

I am no expert in the English language or it's grammar rules, but I did learn a few things at school and over the years since. Language changes over time, as do the rules governing what to use when. I try to stick to the rules as I understand them when I'm writing.