The British Inland Revenue are lowering more than just tax...

Time spent in apostrophell sharpens the senses. When you start seeing apostrophe errors in small print... which you're not even reading... then you know that your mind has been irrevocably converted to the cause. Such was my experience when I saw this advert:

The tax man is offering a tax break for the gains one can make through share option schemes. Perhaps this is not quite how the tax man sees it, but the bottom line is that your employees can gain more cash and motivation from share option schemes than they would with a straightforward bonus scheme. It's a good thing that the Inland Revenue are advertising such a thing. However, did you spot the error:

It seems that the tax man thinks that the possessive of company is companies'. This word is a possessive, but the possessive of many companies, rather than one. I briefly considered whether the writer of the advert was simply addressing multi-company-owning people. Then I decided that it was an example of ignorance and nothing more. The words in the rest of the sentence suggest that the scheme is for your company and its employees.

So, I can safely cast the tax man into the fiery pit of apostrophell. Next time they offer relief, I hope it's relief from improper use of punctuation.

19 March 2002
Ashley Frieze