BONUS: History of the apostrophe

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BONUS: History of the apostrophe발음듣기

[Voiceover] Hello grammarians, historians, and linguists.발음듣기

David here with Paige.발음듣기

[Voiceover] Hi.발음듣기

[Voiceover] And Jake.발음듣기

[Voiceover] Hey.발음듣기

[Voiceover] And we're gonna talk about the history of the apostrophe.발음듣기

The apostrophe isn't just a punctuation mark.발음듣기

In fact, the word apostrophe comes to us from Greek, from two different compounds.발음듣기

"Apo," meaning "away," and "stroph," meaning "to turn."발음듣기

So it's a turning of strophe.발음듣기

We need to turn away.발음듣기

So it's a turning away.발음듣기

And in rhetoric, in classical rhetoric, when we talk about apostrophe, it's turning away from your actual audience to deliver a message to absent people or inanimate objects or just non-personified, you're trying to personify an inhuman concept.발음듣기

[Voiceover] So before it was a punctuation mark, it was a literary technique.발음듣기

[Voiceover] Yes, it was a turn, it was a figure of speech.발음듣기

You know, so if you think about examples from literature, this can be, the two things that my mind immediately leaps to, being me, are "O, happy dagger," the speech from the end of Romeo and Juliet in act five.발음듣기

Boom, sorry, y'all didn't see.발음듣기

I plunged the stylus into my breast. (giggles)발음듣기

"O, happy dagger, this is thy sheath."발음듣기

"There rust and let me die." Boom.발음듣기

So, like in that, like, you know, we're addressing the dagger.발음듣기

The dagger is not alive.발음듣기

It is a knife.발음듣기

It cannot respond.발음듣기

Or, on a lighter note perhaps, from H.M.S. Pinafore, there's a song, "Fair moon, to thee I sing, bright regent of the heavens."발음듣기

It's the moon.발음듣기

The moon can't talk back.발음듣기

It's the moon.발음듣기

And from this figure of speech, this is where we get the idea that an apostrophe represents something that is missing.발음듣기

That's how we come to get its main use, to represent that something, that it's standing in for absent letters, just like an apostrophe in rhetoric would be delivered to absent friends.발음듣기

Follow me over to the next screen.발음듣기

Let's do a little bit of history.발음듣기

So the apostrophe was introduced to the French language by an engraver and humanist named Geoffroy Tory, I think, is how you would say his name.발음듣기

That's a guess.발음듣기

And around the late 16th century, I think it's around the 1580s, Tory is the man who also introduced a lot of diacritic or accent marks into French.발음듣기

So, you know, instead of like, "aime" meaning loved," it would be aime" like that.발음듣기

And he's the person that used it originally in French to start representing eliminated letters.발음듣기

So if you have an expression like "la heure," meaning the hour," Tory would have it l'heure," like that.발음듣기

You know, and this apostrophe in there, boom, represents this missing vowel sound.발음듣기

So, okay, so it's around this time that this apostrophe starts making its way into English, because remember, England has been under French rule for centuries at this point.발음듣기

The French invaded in the 11th century.발음듣기

We're talking about the Norman Conquest of 1066.발음듣기

And since then, French culture has had a very profound impact on the island of Great Britain.발음듣기

You know, so everyone in a position of power speaks French or understands and reads French.발음듣기

So the nobility speaks and reads French.발음듣기

Anyone that's literate speaks and reads French.발음듣기

And so you're gonna be, you know, this intelligentsia is going to be coming into contact with a lot of French, see the apostrophe being used this way and say, "Oh, that's awfully convenient."발음듣기

And so it's around this time, around the early 17th century, late 16th century that we're starting to see this apostrophe usage in English.발음듣기

This is around the time when you first see the contraction of "I am," "I'm," show up, is around this period.발음듣기

Jake, does this square with how apostrophes are used in other languages too?발음듣기

[Voiceover] Yeah, it's the same in pretty much all the Romance languages.발음듣기

So anything derived from Latin, you have in Latin these long definite articles like "ille," i l l e, or illa," i l l a.발음듣기

And all the definite articles that come out of this in all the Romance languages take some fraction of the original from Latin and omit some part with an apostrophe.발음듣기

So "amico" in Italian, to add a definite article to make it the friend," you can add just l apostrophe. "L'amico."발음듣기

[Voiceover] Cool. So yeah, so during this time of apostrophe expansion across the continent, people are just going nuts, right?발음듣기

There's no standardization of usage for apostrophes.발음듣기

People are using it every which way, but loose, you know.발음듣기

So they're using it like this.발음듣기

They're using it for contractions.발음듣기

They're using it for multiples of stuff, like stuff that we would consider incorrect today.발음듣기

Like "book's," like that.발음듣기

Wah, that looks terrible to me.발음듣기

And crucially, they're using it for the possessive.발음듣기

So like, "Jake's."발음듣기

And the history of that usage is another story entirely.발음듣기

But this, for now, is the history of the introduction of the apostrophe into English.발음듣기

You can learn anything.발음듣기

David and company out.발음듣기

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