The Apostrophes Just Kept On Coming

Typing this straight into Blogger so excuse any typos. I'm just too tired to run it through a wordprocessor.

Is it just Britain that has that wonderful thing known as a 'train replacement service' whereby it's impossible to catch a train on a weekend? I spent a good few hours hour today being bounced around in the back of an empty minibus only to arrive fifty minutes late at the hospital where I found my father awake for the first time in days.

Not that he was in much of a mood for talking. Not when parents insist on taking children into hospital wards where there are seriously ill people who might not take kindly to screaming and tantrums.

Which reminds me to ask: why do nurses close the drapes around a bed and then proceed to describe in a loud voice what indignities they're performing on the patient? Today I heard the following monologue which went on for a while longer than I'll describe and in far greater detail. 'Let's have them down, shall we Peter? That's right... And now the other leg. Oh, what a mess you've made! I bet you don't do this at home!'

And why do buses always make you realise that your home town is really a hell? Or is it just like this on a Saturday?

Why do the government help families visit relatives in prison but don't help the low paid to visit parents in hospital?

However, you see some interesting things from the back of a bus, including my new favourite example of apostrophe misuse. Presented in classic bronze lettering next to a letterbox, not ten minutes from my own doorstep, was the following plaque:

The Jones'es'

Well, it amused me on a day otherwise free of laughter creases...

A Question About Apostrophes

Don't think that the irony is lost on me. This morning I rant about would-be writers pestering me and this evening I'm asking a question that would-be writers might be able to answer. Alternatively, this one is for those with degrees in punctuation or jobs in editing and are willing to answer the question of an aging amateur hack.

Is there anybody out there who can explain the following?

I’m currently reading ‘London Fields’ by Martin Amis and at the beginning there’s a bit that has me confused. He writes:

“There followed some more information about the perfumes, ‘Scandal’, ‘Outrage’, and minor lines called Mirage, Disguise, Duplicity and Sting, and beneath, in double quotes, accompanied by an address and telephone number, with misplaced apostrophes: Keith’s the Name, Scent’s the Game.” (Martin Amis, ‘London Fields’, p. 12)

Now, I’ve been pondering this all day and I still haven’t figured it out but what ‘misplaced apostrophes’?

I thought an apostrophe indicates either possession or omission. Here, in both cases, doesn’t the apostrophe represent the missing ‘i’ of ‘is’? ‘Keith is the name, Scent is the Game’? Or have it all wrong and I must go back to basics and learn how to use an apostrophe?

Of course, there might be some super intelligent textual game the narrator or Amis is playing.

And while I’m about it: why are ‘Scandal’ and ‘Outrage’ enclosed in single inverted commas but Mirage, Disguise, Duplicity and String go unpunctuated?