It all started with an article in The Guardian. 

The headline read “Hampshire villagers bring street’s apostrophe catastrophe to a full stop.” 

I clicked on that article. Oh yes, I did. 

Because of all the ills in the world, of all the daily nuisances, my pet peeve is the absent or incorrectly used apostrophe. 

Now, I’m not claiming I always get the apostrophe right.  

But while many grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors infuriate me more than people confusing Star Trek with Star Wars, correct apostrophe use is where I strive for perfection. 

And yes. I expect the rest of the world to strive for apostrophe perfection, too. 

Also, I’d be incredibly grateful if you could all use the Oxford comma.

I have kept these thoughts inside my head my entire life because, well, policing humanity’s use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling is annoying. 

That it’s only annoying to me when I get corrected — and never annoying to me when I do the correcting — does not, I’ve been told, matter. 

Even if I do it just a little bit. 

So I quietly seethe when the English language is abused. 

I mean, thankfully I have kids I can correct, right? 

And yes. I know Grammarly insists I pop in a comma after “So” in the above sentence. But my words are meant to be read in a certain cadence. Commas — both their presence and absence — aid in that endeavor. 

So shut it, Grammarly.  

The Guardian article — whose URL, interestingly, does not allow for an apostrophe in the article title included in said URL — details how a British community railed and rallied when a local sign was replaced — lacking a vital apostrophe. 

The sign originally read “St. Mary’s Terrace.” 

Its replacement? “St. Marys Terrace.” 

Oh no. No. Just, no. Is the Millennium Falcon a Federation ship? Chewbacca a Klingon? Does Kirk helm the Death Star? 

No. And neither should St. Mary’s Terrace become St. Marys Terrace.  

My fury at this new signage was quickly tempered when the article quoted the chairman of the Apostrophe Protection Society. 

The Apostrophe Protection Society. The Apostrophe Protection Society?  

Could a more wonderful organization exist? I mean, if I were on Celebrity Jeopardy!, this is the organization I would play for. All in, Ken. True Daily Double. 

I clicked the link to the society. Quickly, before this dream of an organization vanished like other things I wished were real, like my United Kingdom citizenship and Starfleet Academy. 

And I joined. I joined the Apostrophe Protection Society. That both St. Mary’s Terrace and the Apostrophe Protection Society are British — could this moment of my life be more perfect?  

British apostrophe purists — I can almost live without a Federation now that I have found my people. 

Each month, I receive an emailed newsletter from the Apostrophe Protection Society. That newsletter I save, like it’s the last cookie or a good beach read. 

And when a hard day is over, when a difficult task is done, when the house is quiet and my tea is hot, I open that newsletter and read it like it’s a lost Shakespearean work. 

It was over an anniversary brunch with my husband that I shared this induction into the Apostrophe Protection Society. 

He laughed. Laughed in the way someone who truly loves you is both charmed and bewildered by your quirks. 

He told me he was going to create a LinkedIn account for me. 

“Your profile picture will be you in your Star Trek uniform. Your membership in the Apostrophe Protection Society will feature front and center,” he laughed. 

Fine by me. 

He, as we speak, is reading a book on the brutal, entwined history of humans and mosquitoes. 

That is so adorably nerdy, I could kiss him every time I see that book on the end table.  

Mosquitoes.  

He has his quests. I have mine. 

Oh man. If they have a mosquito problem on St. Mary’s Terrace — that might be our retirement plan. 

Also, I’d just like to say I don’t have a Star Trek uniform per se. But nothing I say here will dig me out of this black hole of a dorky morass so I think that’s all I’ll say about that. 

Clicking through the Apostrophe Protection Society webpage, I discovered a repository for apostrophe misuse, links to apostrophe use pages, a society mission. 

And a store.  

An Apostrophe Protection Society store. Shirts and greeting cards and mugs. All protecting the apostrophe.

Looks like my Star Trek uniform might get some company.