BOISE — Albertson's Inc. is jettisoning its apostrophe, to the chagrin of two Oregon grammarians.
"We haven't used the apostrophe for a number of years in our signs," said Ertharin Cousin, spokeswoman for the Boise-based grocery chain.
The missing apostrophe, dropped last spring in legal papers and official documents, has not gone unnoticed.
In February 2000, Roy Paul Nelson and John Benneth were having coffee at a McDonald's, which they contend is properly attired with an apostrophe. They noticed it was missing from the nearby supermarket's sign.
They hastily formed the American Apostrophe Association and fired off several letters to then-Albertson's, demanding the apostrophe be restored to its rightful place.
But the possessive punctuation never returned to the signs.
"It just goes to show you can't fight City Hall," said Nelson, the association's executive secretary and the retired director of the University of Oregon's journalism department.
"We are morally dispirited here," said Benneth, the association president and a retired spokesman for the American Forestry Council.
"This started as a couple of old retired guys having coffee," Benneth said. "We still have coffee, so in spirit we still exist. I think we've badgered poor Albertsons sufficiently."
Meanwhile, Albertsons moved quickly to head off any other radical grammarians ready to take up the cause.
"Losing the apostrophe does nothing to diminish the heritage of the company," Cousin said.