Londoners are the UK's best regional punctuators. Can you spot the mistakes in our signs?

Tuesday, 11 November 2008

THE apostrophe is the punctuation mark which causes most problems, an independent poll has revealed - but Londoners can cope with it the best.Nearly 2,000 UK adults sat a test set by the SpinVox speech technology company - but nearly half were unable to use the apostrophe properly. Londoners came out on top as Britain's best regional punctuators, getting 78% of the answers right. The most common mistake was not knowing how to punctuate a possessive plural. The test revealed 46% of those who sat it thought that, in the context set, "people's choice" was wrong - whereas it is correct. The adults were also asked which mistake most annoyed good punctuators.
Replacement of "they're" with "their" was the most irritating, followed by the use of an apostrophe to denote a plural - as in the use of the incorrect "boy's" instead of correct "boys'." Joint third was using "its" instead of "it's" and "it's" instead of "its" - the confusion between a plural possessive and abbreviation of the phrase "it is." Top UK English language expert, Professor Christopher Mulvey, from the Museum of the English Language at Winchester University, said: "The problems people have with apostrophes arise from the hopeless state of English punctuation and spelling. The situation is so confusing that people panic and hypercorrect. "To get it right, you need to look up the rules every time you think an apostrophe might be needed - and do this for the next six months in order to 'internalise' the rules." Teachers came top of the class in the poll as the sector which punctuates the best, with more than 80% getting full marks in the punctuation test. Journalists and those working in public relations people came second - with workers in the transport and distribution coming bottom. Women not only scored higher marks in the test on average than men, they also claimed to care more about incorrect punctuation. People in the the 55 years plus age bracket came bottom of the age ranges - with 25-34 year olds averaging 78%.