#183

i newspaper, August 11, 2017

If you are doing a story about a grammar or punctuation error, it’s a good idea to get your own version right. Although ‘plural’ names such as Dickens or Charles end in ‘s’, they are singular and therefore take an apostrophe and an extra ‘s’. So this should be ‘Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations’. In the intro, there is no reason to put ‘is reported to have cost’; the council has confirmed the sums involved.

As for the heading, why is the word ‘misplaced’ in quotes? Is there some dispute about it? And could there be two more boring words to include than ‘borough council’? I would suggest:

What the Dickens? Apostrophe error costs £1,200

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