Possession

It turns out there’s no apostrophe in Harpers Ferry. True fact. Punctuation geek that I am, I tried to get to the bottom of it by asking a helpful park ranger (not to be confused with Handsome Ponytail Ranger, although he’s helpful, too). A man named Harper had run a ferry there. Various historic news clips showed the town as “Harper’s Ferry.” The ranger knew not whither had gone the apostrophe, but HPR, Shmoo, and I were soon to discover. We saw this sign near the pub where we ate lunch:

At the pub, we learned the possessive form of “all y’all”: “Your all’s food will be up shortly.” All this a mere 3-hour drive from Philadelphia! But who am I to make fun? Philadelphia is known for its “youse” and “youins,” the possessives of which are much less elegant (both phonetically and—I can only imagine—visually) than “your all’s.”

Comments

[SteveO]

How do you know the company isn't owned by a Ms. Root and Mr. Stem?

[juliloquy]

Good point, SteveO. Alas, they're website work's not, so we shan't be able to find out.

[SteveO]

Its written in the forgotten anal's of history.