The Word is Photos NOT Photo’s
November 25th, 2009I am the last person, according to my husband, who should be giving a punctuation lesson. One of his biggest pet peeves is apostrophe errors. It has started rubbing off on me.
As a result today’s quick tip is a lesson in apostrophes.
An apostrophe does not mean “warning – an ‘s’ is coming.” It indicates possession or a contraction. Those are the only two reasons to use one.
If you have more than one of something it gets an “s” not an ‘s or s’. While this bothers my husband daily, the time it grinds on my nerves most is when photographers write the word photo’s (to mean more than one photo). That is incorrect. Please stop. You do not need to stop for me. But stop for yourself. It looks unprofessional. I want you to gain respect from those who read your words, your blogs, your sites. So make sure unless that photo possesses something that there is not an apostrophe anywhere nearby.
That said, remember my grammar is not perfect, actually not close to perfect. And I get corrected all the time. So do not take it personally. Just fix it now that you know.
Happy Thanksgiving if you celebrate.
Jodi
52 Comments
Welcome to the MCP Actions Photoshop Blog
- Learn to enhance your images with time saving Photoshop tutorials. Join us for daily blog posts with the latest photography and photoshop tips, contests, photographer interviews, and blueprints teaching how to use photoshop actions.
Featured Posts
- Editing Landscape Images Using Actions in Photoshop
- My Camera Takes Really Nice Pictures
- Over-Editing in Photoshop: How to Avoid 25 Common Editing Mistakes
- Portrait Photography Trends & Fads: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
- Finish It Photoshop Actions Set Now Available ~ Changing the Way You Prepare and Display Images on the Web
- See All Featured Posts
Recent Posts
- Win Holiday Card Templates from Photographer Cafe
- Photoshop Alone Does Not Make a Good Photographer
- Watch Me Work: Photoshop Actions & Workflow Online Class
- Tips for After Your First Portrait Portfolio Building Session: Part 2
- 7 Tips for Your First Portrait Portfolio Building Session: Part 1
- See All Recent Posts
Polls
Loading ...
Photoshop Tips
- Outdoor Image Fixed in Photoshop: Better Sky ~ Better Lighting
- Senior Photography: Tips and Tricks on Posing, Locations and More
- Using Photoshop Actions to Enhance a Blue Sky and a Rainbow
- Photoshop Actions: Glossary of Offerings by MCP Actions
- Photoshop Actions: A Guide to Choosing the Best Actions
- See All Photoshop Tips
Video Tutorials
- Photoshop Video Tutorial: Watch Me Work {Color Pop, Eyes, Skin}
- The Secret to Using Photoshop on an iPad and iPhone
- Installing Photoshop Actions in Elements: Video Tutorials
- What Are Photoshop Actions And How They Can Help Or Hurt Photography
- Free Photoshop Action + Video: To Add Texture to Photos in Photoshop
- See All Video Tutorials Posts
Categories
- Activities
- Announcements
- Assignments
- Blueprints
- Business Tips
- Cancer Awareness
- Contests
- Discounts, Deals & Coupons
- FAQs
- Featured Post
- Free Actions
- Free Photoshop Stuff
- Guest Bloggers
- Interviews
- MCP Collaboration
- MCP Thoughts
- Photo Sharing & Inspiration
- Photography & Photoshop News
- Photography Tips
- Photoshop Actions
- Photoshop Tips & Tutorials
- Polls
- Social Networking
- Video Tutorials
- Workshops
9:25 amNovember 25th, 2009
[...] 1 votes vote The Word is Photos NOT Photo’s I am the last person, according to my husband, who should be giving a punctuation lesson. [...]
9:29 amNovember 25th, 2009
Great blog post. This is a huge pet peeve of mine haha
9:31 amNovember 25th, 2009
THANK YOU!!! Like your husband, apostrophe errors eat at me, too. The biggest offender in my book? When people have some sign/boulder/whatever by their front door and it has their name on it: The Smith’s
The Smith’s what? The Smith’s rock? The Smith’s sign??? PLEASE people, stop marking your territory! :- D Really does drive me nuts, so I’m glad to see you’re shedding some light on the subject!
9:45 amNovember 25th, 2009
Oh yes!! That absolutely drives me bonkers. I wonder how I can tactfully direct a few people to read this blog post . . . .
9:46 amNovember 25th, 2009
GAH! That drives me bonkers too! And another…..lense for lens….GAH!
9:50 amNovember 25th, 2009
Except for it, it’s, its’….those are a bit more confusing when it comes to apostrophes (see, no apostrophe’s!). I’m still trying to decipher the rules on THAT…
But yeah, there’s nothing like seeing a blog or website with the word photo’s…when it isn’t signifying some type of possession. Thanks for this. Hope many “offenders” read and fix!
9:51 amNovember 25th, 2009
You are so funny!!! I am the Grammar Queen – misspellings and poor grammar drive me out of my mind. I usually only correct my husband though. Thank you for saying the words.
Its vs. it’s is my pet peeve.
9:56 amNovember 25th, 2009
not to start this as a pet peeve thread or anything, but it’s the rare person who uses the word comprise correctly!! something is not “comprised of.” it may be “composed of” other things, but it is not “comprised of” other things. a patchwork quilt comprises hundreds of pieces. a crowd comprises 250 people.
that plus the ‘s, and also nucular. don’t get me started.
10:22 amNovember 25th, 2009
love it!
11:08 amNovember 25th, 2009
Haha, you just couldn’t hold it in a minute longer, huh?
It miffs me off too.
11:22 amNovember 25th, 2009
AMEN!
11:25 amNovember 25th, 2009
And for those designing and selling Christmas cards, “Happy Holiday’s” is also horribly incorrect.
11:36 amNovember 25th, 2009
I hate this, too! http://www.apostrophe.me has a helpful graph for anyone who still doesn’t get that apostrophes aren’t plural indicators.
11:50 amNovember 25th, 2009
thank you. thank you. i have seen apostrophe errors on posters and t-shirts from national chain stores and restaurants. Old Navy had a t-shirt last year that said “Local’s Only” — really? Old Navy doesn’t make enough money to employ a literate proofreader? (sorry, off soapbox
.
12:08 pmNovember 25th, 2009
A HUGE pet peeve of mine too… It seems to be a common problem among photographers…. Also, words such as your and you’re. They mean different things! And its and it’s. Again, different meanings.
Hopefully posts like this one can help us all to improve our writing.
12:26 pmNovember 25th, 2009
Thank you! I don’t know why it is so hard for people to understand the contraction/possessive rule. Thank you for showing everyone!
1:32 pmNovember 25th, 2009
Amen! It’s a very simple rule, yet so often messed up. Ugh.
1:59 pmNovember 25th, 2009
I wish there was a LOVE button. I see this all the time and it drives me insane.
2:00 pmNovember 25th, 2009
good one.
2:01 pmNovember 25th, 2009
lol!! love it!
2:04 pmNovember 25th, 2009
And when customers what to put "The Smith's" on their greeting cards. The Smith's what? The Smith's dog? House? Tree? LOL I usually encourage them to say "The Smith Family." Gets around the whole sticky mess.
2:19 pmNovember 25th, 2009
I'm and English teacher so I can certainly appreciate this one! Thanks for sharing this tid bit with all of us.
2:22 pmNovember 25th, 2009
I couldn’t agree more, this is one of my biggest pet peeves! What’s even worse is when companies use false possessives in their advertising or even logos. Inconceivable!
2:25 pmNovember 25th, 2009
I am such a grammar geek and bad grammar drives me crazy on professional sites!
2:26 pmNovember 25th, 2009
Photographers love to say sneek peak instead of sneak peek
2:30 pmNovember 25th, 2009
thank you!!! this is a pet peeve of mine, too. yep, sneak PEAK is another one….
2:38 pmNovember 25th, 2009
Ohhh this is a good one! I had a lady argue with me that she should put a comma before the word and in their names. I just gave up. Bob, Mary, Joey, and Timmy. *sigh* And dont even get me started on their there and they're!!!
3:06 pmNovember 25th, 2009
Oh thank you, thank you, thank you….add “it’s” and “its” to the list, too!
3:29 pmNovember 25th, 2009
while we’re at it can we teach people that stationery (as in paper products) is with an “e”?
stationAry means that you are standing still.
huge pet peeve!
4:19 pmNovember 25th, 2009
Jodi will you please have a black friday sale???? Your Bag of Tricks is what I really want but the other people are wanting my money…sales you know…they are trying to get me. Don’t let me do it.
4:25 pmNovember 25th, 2009
I am forever typing sneek peak and then having to correct it. I know it's wrong as soon as I type it. But, I also do this stuff verbally, changing the first letter of two words around.
4:54 pmNovember 25th, 2009
I honestly did not know that, I never finished HS, and my grammar is terrible. Thanks for sharing
5:00 pmNovember 25th, 2009
Oh, spelling really gets to me. Top of my list is “congradulations” to the wedding couple.
6:26 pmNovember 25th, 2009
I couldn’t agree more! That annoys me too.
12:39 amNovember 26th, 2009
Jodi, that mistake is so abused these days. It's as if people do not know the difference between a possessive and a plural. Plurals do not need apostrophes!And Heather, wasn't your client correct in asking for an Oxford comma? I've known many who say that it is optional, but it certainly isn't wrong. (At least when I learned about them.)Sigh…
10:07 amNovember 26th, 2009
Ok, I wasn’t going to add one, but then I moved on checking my list of blogs and saw another famous photographer use this error again, twice, in one post. There seems to be much confusion about when to use “I” or “me” in a sentence. It’s actually an easy one to get right if you just follow this simple rule. For example, Tim and me are going shopping. You wouldn’t say “Me is going shopping”, so that sentence is incorrect. Always try out the sentence without the other person in it. More often I see the mistake made at the end of sentences where people are using I instead of me.
Here’s an example I grabbed off the internet
-Incorrect: “He gave the concert tickets to Mike and I.”
-Correct: “He gave the concert tickets to Mike and me.”
-If you want to know how to tell, simply take “Mike and” out of the sentence. You would not say he gave the tickets to I.
My grammar is not perfect either but, I agree, the more we try to keep ourselves in check the more professional we will look! Thanks for all the great info Jodi!
1:17 pmNovember 26th, 2009
How funny! I don’t think I have noticed people doing that before but it would definitely bother me too! : ) Happy Thanksgiving!
5:31 pmNovember 26th, 2009
Happy Thanksgiving!
Yes, that bugs the heck out of me too. Drives me nuts really. Thanks for telling a few people.
7:12 pmNovember 27th, 2009
I agree, but my biggest grammar pet peeve is ending a sentence in a preposition! It is “Where are you?” NOT “Where are you at?”. Thank you. I feel better now that I have said it.
10:18 amNovember 30th, 2009
I used to teach honors English. These bother me, too!Liana, you're right. There should be a comma before the and. Printers of newspapers stopped using them because it saves them ink. Fancy that.
10:55 pmNovember 30th, 2009
This is my BIGGEST pet peeve! Thanks for saying something
10:56 amDecember 1st, 2009
Teresa, thanks for the validation! I had to make sure the old brain wasn't completely losing it.
Saving ink by not printing a comma? Amazing!
3:55 amDecember 3rd, 2009
[...] I’d post. I’m so glad she wrote it so I don’t have to. Hey photographers – the word is photos, not photo’s. Oh Jodi, I think I love [...]
6:31 amDecember 3rd, 2009
Thank you!
I’m a punctuation and grammar nerd – but I make mistakes too. I also hate when people use “quite” for “quiet” or “to” for “too”.
Thanks for helping us all!
10:20 amDecember 3rd, 2009
apostrophe … no apostrophe
to or too
there or their
etc….
some of the reasons why I got D’s … or Ds ??? in English all through school.
English is too (to?) complicated!
Grrrrrr.
12:38 pmDecember 3rd, 2009
YEEESSS! Thank you for stating this!
And for those struggling with it’s or its…
it’s = it is or it has
its = possessive
And Amen to no Happy Holiday’s!
Merry Christmas!
12:17 amDecember 14th, 2009
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Apostrophe misuse drives me crazy!!! I absolutely love your line, “An apostrophe does not mean ‘warning – an ’s’ is coming.’” I may have to use it.
1:40 pmDecember 23rd, 2009
I cannot expres’s how much it bother’s me when people put apostrophe’s in the wrong place’s.
BIGGEST PET PEEVE EVER! I also hate when people put there their and they’re in the wrong context as well.
8:31 pmMay 25th, 2010
Actually photo’s can be correct. Photo isn’t actually a true word, it is a shortened form of photograph, because of it’s popular use, photo has become mainstreamed into the English language. So yes, photos is correct when you consider photo a word. If you would like to use completely correct English, then one would use the word photograph and when saying photo, it would just be a shortened version. Then proper English grammar sets in and you would use an apostrophe to connect the last letter of the pluralized form of photograph, the s, to the shortened form of the main word, photo. Hence, photo’s which is the same thing as photographs. English professor here, it’s been disputed a lot because of the confusion of photo being a word or not.
9:35 amMay 29th, 2010
Adam W (No.45) has a point. Apostrophes can be used for plurals in some cases, especially for certain abbreviations or to clarify things for the reader…
e.g. 1
There are two i’s in skiing and three a’s in aardvark.
e.g. 2
He sent four SOS’s before anyone responded.
7:08 amJune 4th, 2010
But is Photo’s not a contraction of photographs?
7:13 amJune 4th, 2010
I tend to agree with Phil. Though I would probably use Photos but it wouldn’t drive me crazy because it is a contraction of the word photographs.