If we’re lucky, by now we know the winner of the presidential race, and regardless of how it turned out, there will be unhappy people. If it went the way many of us hope, the next few months will be very long since someone doesn’t take defeat well and has the tendency to throw … hissy fits (that’s the most polite way I can put it).

So let’s just give that a miss for now, especially as it will only encourage the trolls, who are either crowing or grousing. Seriously, I’m not going out on a limb here; that’s pretty much all they do, along with name-calling, lying and posting whatever they believe will cause the greatest uproar. They really need a hobby that has nothing to do with the Internet.

Instead, a couple of nerdy things have caught my attention in recent days. They’ll at least take my mind off the election and the anniversary of my brother Corey’s death (both the same day; how fitting, especially considering that he was a victim of covid and covid misinformation).

I must comment on this from John Brummett’s column on Sunday: “Might a seismic decision on the American presidency come down to an apostrophe, only the most misunderstood and misused punctuation mark in the history of American mailboxes and home welcome mats?”

Wait a minute! I’m the word nerd ’round here!

Still, John is correct about the apostrophe. (It’s clear to me from the surrounding context of the quote in question, apostrophe or not, whom Joe Biden was characterizing as garbage, and it’s the “comedian”: “And just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage.’ Well, let me tell you something. … The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”)

In just a few weeks, family Christmas cards will start to hit mailboxes, and too many of them will make me cringe (no, not just the ones with the family posing with firearms ’cause nothin’ says “peace on Earth” like a bunch of shootin’ irons). Too many people are under the impression that apostrophes are to be used in making plurals. In only limited circumstances can you use an apostrophe when making a plural, such as when the lack of one could cause confusion, like when talking about a grade (the plural for the grade of A would be As, which is a word by itself, so it’s acceptable, kinda, to use A’s).

Family names that don’t end in s, sh, ch, z or x can be made plural by simply adding an s, such as Loopers (honestly, you probably don’t want too many of those in the same place at once; we’re kinda loud and weird). For other names, you would need to add es: Sanderses, Bushes, Churches, Cruzes, Maddoxes.

But plurals aren’t the only place apostrophes are used improperly. Showing possession, one of the chief jobs of the apostrophe (along with standing in for elided letters), is so often done incorrectly. There’s its (the possessive form, which does not take an apostrophe because it’s a troublemaker) and it’s (which means it is or it has) and the horrid thing I’ve seen in the past few years: its’. That stands for nothing but the stench of burning brain cells, which is especially sad considering that some of the people using its’ have doctoral degrees.

As with making plurals with apostrophes, too many believe that names ending with z or x, like those ending with s, don’t need an s after the apostrophe to show possession. They indeed do need it unless you want readers staring at what you’ve written, trying to make heads or tails of it and wondering if that apostrophe is perhaps meant as an accent mark. Sure, talk about those things that belong to Inez and Max, but be sure to write Inez’s and Max’s, not Inez’ and Max’.

And yes, if you’re talking about something belonging to a family, you’ll need just an apostrophe. Use the correct plural form of the name (Loopers, Sanderses, etc.) and plunk an apostrophe at the end. No need to add another s, and definitely don’t make it Looper’s or Sanders’ unless you’re talking about a single person of that name.

Every time you misuse an apostrophe, a fairy dies, and I want no more pixies on my conscience. For that matter, every time you put a space before punctuation (yeah, some, but not all of that can be attributed to voice-to-text use, but c’mon … when it’s accompanied by random strings of all-caps words, I know it was you), a gnome is rendered paralyzed. I’ll allow that because gnomes annoy me, but I’m not sure I can speak for other editors having to delete those extra spaces, especially if they’re having to do it on page proofs, which means you’re also annoying page designers. Never do that.

Hyphens are another oft-misused bit of punctuation. While some refuse (perhaps on some strange principle having to do with torturing editors) to employ them, others inundate their sentences with them, often where they needn’t be (which also tortures editors).

The general rule you should remember when it comes to hyphens is that if a phrase can’t be easily misunderstood by the absence of a hyphen, it’s OK to leave them out. But if there’s a chance a word could be misread, such as re-collect (meaning to collect again rather than recollect, meaning to remember) or re-creation (create again rather than recreation, meaning activities), hyphenate that sucker. Most adjectival phrases before a noun (a part-time job), or with prefixes like pro- or self-, should be hyphenated. Compound words, numbers and fractions take hyphens, as do phrases like 9-year-old boy (no hyphens, though, if the boy is described as 9 years old). You should also use hyphens when there is an awkward doubling of vowels, such as re-election, pre-eminent or semi-independent.

What doesn’t take a hyphen? For one, -ly adverbs, so stop with the furiously-expanding use (see what I did there?) of that to save the sometimes-tenuous sanity of editors. There are also adjectives that used to be hyphenated but are no longer, having evolved to be single words, like longtime, hardworking, and lifelong. Brand-new, though, is still hyphenated, so don’t write it as brand new or brandnew.

Yes, like life forms, language evolves, often for the better (though there are some bits of language evolution that are questionable; I will always edit out “irregardless.”).

I’m still waiting for some political life forms to evolve. I think I’ll be waiting a long time.

As I write this Tuesday afternoon, I’m wearing my Rosie the Riveter T-shirt and hoping against hope for a good result from the election. I have to hope that enough people have been turned off by the divisive and fallacious tactics of one of the presidential candidates, and by the efforts of some to create the impression that there will be violence regardless of which side wins. Only one side has shown that propensity when the results don’t go their way, which is why so many election officials, et al., are battening down the hatches, having learned from 2020.

Let’s hope that common sense, decency and love for democracy prevail. Too many of us will be stuck if they don’t (moving to another country isn’t financially feasible).