The fantasy apostrophe

This blog is about common errors Italians make when speaking English, so let's assume you are Italian and live in Italy. For the sake of today's topic, let's also assume you have a business and you want a name for it that's trendy and modern. What could be more trendy and modern than a bit of English, right? But how can we make this name sound English? Ah, I know, these English speakers, they use apostrophes, don't they? That's right, I remember something from school about a certain "genitivo sassone" or something like that. So if I put an apostrophe in the name, this name will automatically be cool, trendy, modern, and, most of all, English. It's like magic!

The above is what I must assume to be the reasoning behind the liberal sprinkling of randomly placed apostrophes on signs and shop fronts. Unfortunately, adding a random apostrophe doesn't miraculously turn a name or phrase into English. For example, the "Dog's Shop" sign in my neighbourhood would tell an English speaker that the owner of the shop is, in fact, a dog. Perhaps that really is the case, in which case I would like to compliment this very smart animal on its excellent English grammar skills, but somehow how I doubt it. Even more baffling is an establishment called "Hair's Sandy". Is Sandy owned by a hair? Or is this apostrophe "s" actually a contraction of "is"? Perhaps Sandy is so devoted to her hairdressing business that she feels she has become the hair? Or perhaps she meant "Sandy's hair" and got the order wrong? It's a mystery.

It's not my intention here to make fun of people's language skills. Every language learner makes mistakes and that's fine; that's how you learn. However, I would advise against naming your business using a language you don't have a solid grip on. If you are Italian  perhaps you should consider naming your shop in Italian, widely considered to be a beautiful language. Many businesses abroad adopt Italian names to be considered tasteful and stylish, so you could do much worse. If you insist on having an English name, then perhaps give a free haircut to an English teacher to make sure you get the grammar right.