greengrocer's apostrophe

• greengrocer's-apostrophe (archaic)
• greengrocers' apostrophe (nonstandard)

From the relatively common misusage of apostrophes seen on the placards used at greengroceries.

greengrocer's apostrophe (plural greengrocer's apostrophes or (humorous) greengrocers apostrophe's)

1. An incorrectly used apostrophe; (especially) one mistakenly used to form the plural of a noun, for example: writing the plural of banana as banana's (a possessive) instead of bananas.
   • 1993, British Film Institute, Sight and Sound Film Review:

     [A] flashing neon sign advertising the Pari's Hotel is less an early case of greengrocer's apostrophe than a sardonic Pascalian allusion (pari in French meaning 'bet').

   • 1998, Richard M. Hogg et al., The Cambridge History of the English Language, page 121:

     It is hardly surprising that these conventions seem to be in rapid collapse, with what has been called "the greengrocer's apostrophe" (apple's 60p, Antique's, linguistic's, and perhaps even mean't, all personally attested) […]

   • 2004, Joy Burrough-Boenisch, Righting English That's Gone Dutch:

     When applied in English it produces greengrocer's apostrophes.

   • 2024 October 7, Philip Oltermann, “Germans decry influence of English as ‘idiot’s apostrophe’ gets official approval”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     The Deppenapostroph is not to be confused with the English greengrocer’s apostrophe, when an apostrophe before an ‘s’ is mistakenly used to form the plural of a noun (“a kilo of potato’s”).

• apothecary's Latin