misplaced apostrophes, especially when used in a plural (and mistakenly creating a possessive) peeve the googly moogly out of me. especially when they appear in “professional” publications.

take, for example, this snippet from petplace.com’s daily dog newsletter:

The closet is the first place the Watsons look now if Ellie is missing. She’s been found there a few times as well. She is microchipped now and Judith swears that she will never get lost again. The Watson’s adore their little Yorkie!

while i’m sure the watsons’ dog is happy she wasn’t lost, and that mrs. watson’s happy to have found her, i’m irked that the newsletter doesn’t have a copyeditor who can catch the misplaced apostrophe. how awful for the watsons. and my poor eyes.

(i’m sure there are those who are perpetually irked at my tendencies toward irregular capitalization, so there ya go.)