In 1973, when I was studying at the University of California, Berkeley, I put the question posed by John Crace about the lack of an apostrophe in Finnegans Wake to Thomas Flanagan, a professor in the English department. He explained that the insertion of an apostrophe would presuppose that Finnegan is an individual and that he is dead (hence his wake).
Flanagan’s reading allowed plural Finnegans (a collective of Irish people), and the implied exhortation that they wake from their slumbers, precipitated by the weight of their history and the strictures of Catholicism. The fruitful doubleness of the word “wake” obviates an apostrophe. Perhaps Joyce might have announced his intention by deploying an exclamation mark instead, but that would have too clunkily limited the possibilities not just of his writing but of our readings.
Philip Stogdon
London
• Re the abolition of the apostrophe; the latest edict from the educational powers-that-be requires six-year-olds to identify possessive apostrophes in their reading materials.
Barbara Eddy
Oundle, Northamptonshire
• David Gibson wants to get rid of the apostrophe (Letters, 12 February). It may be his wont to write dont, but to me it’s just cant.
Michael Bulley
Chalon-sur-Saône, France
• Apostrophes aren’t always necessary and don’t always clarify? What am I to make of the sign near Ramsgate which says “St Augustine’s cross”?
Philippa Lowe
London
• Punctuation isn’t all necessary? ’Tis down ’ere m’dear!
Peter Gibson
Morebath, Devon
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