ABSTRACT
It is a Saturday in January, and I am strolling through the market in an outer suburb of North London. At a flower stall I see a sign on a pot-plant: Cyclemen £1.50. I have been thinking about spelling for some months now, and so I make a mental note of this small example. On the same day, in the same market, I can see any number of examples of what in London is called the ‘barrow boy’s apostrophe’. Tom’s £1 a pound, Cue’s 3 for £1.50, Chrys’s 3 bunches £2.50. The latter is well recognized, and it is the subject of some mild humour. It is also the object of evaluation: the barrow boy’s apostrophe is clearly a sign of being working class, and of being-let’s put it bluntly-‘uneducated’. The educated person’s confident judgement settles the matter; no particular harm is or seems to be done; the structure of the social world is reaffirmed; and that is that.
