The apostrophe that keeps me awake at night

The apostrophe — it’s an odd thing, isn’t it? As punctuation goes, it serves more functions than most, depending on what language you speak.

In most languages, the apostrophe is used to aid pronunciation or indicate omitted letters. French (l'homme) and Italian (l'acqua) use it for elision; Dutch deploys it in plurals such as auto's and taxi’s; Turkish separates proper nouns from suffixes (Ankara'da); Chinese Pinyin distinguishes syllables (Xi'an); and in Hawaiian (Hawaiʻi), it’s a glottal stop as a letter in its own right. 

English is unusual in using the apostrophe extensively for possession (eg. John's) as well as contractions (eg. don't). So what is it about the name of Spain's largest bedding chain that disturbs me so much?

bed’s (sic) is a Spanish high street mattress and bed retailer with more than 250 branches throughout the country. Everywhere I go, I am infuriated by their sign’s incomprehensible use of an apostrophe. It has no place in any language, so what is it doing there?

bed’s is owned by Pikolin Group, a major bedding manufacturer in Spain, which may explain their erroneous use of punctuation. While the apostrophe is used in Catalan, it doesn’t appear at all in the country’s most widely spoken Castellano.

I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that the marketing people at Pikolin simply asked the nearest native English speaker how to spell the plural of ‘bed’.

Spending just a short time on social media makes it immediately apparent how many Brits (and Americans) didn’t pay much attention in English lessons. As such, it can sometimes feel like the battle for correct grammar and punctuation has been lost.

In forums such as X, Instagram, Facebook, and even LinkedIn, grammar is a lost cause, and the pedants among us must suck it up. I know language evolves, punctuation migrates, and one day "bed's" will simply be how we spell it, the same way nobody blinks at the book chain "Waterstones" anymore.

But in the world that I occupy, it still matters greatly. The apostrophe may be tiny, but so is a missing screw. Ignore enough of either, and eventually something starts to wobble. Perhaps not civilisation as a whole, but certainly the way we communicate.

Pikolin’s beds may be superb; I've never slept on one. But every time I pass one of their stores, their wretched apostrophe riles me. I walk past, wincing and muttering to myself. And should I be in the market for bedroom furniture, I'll be shopping elsewhere on principle. I doubt Pikolin's marketing department will lose any sleep over it, but I hope they're pleased with themselves.