Words appearing in the novel without an apostrophe: arent, couldnt, didnt, doesnt, dont, hadnt, hasnt, isnt, oclock, shouldnt, theyre, wasnt, werent, wouldnt, youre, youve. This is intentional by the author. Please dont send letters to the copy editor, Shaun Oakey.

— from the acknowledgements in Michael Winter’s The Architects Are Here

Burt Cummerbund, a spokesperson for Canadians for the Removal of Asinine Punctuation, hailed author Michael Winter for continuing his courageous crusade to liberate the apostrophe in his latest novel, The Architects Are Here.

“It takes a brave man to stand up to the copy-editing Gestapo,” said Cummerbund, sporting one of CRAP’s Free the apostrophe! T-shirts. “And I’m here to testify that Michael Winter is a brave man.”

Cummerbund continued by noting that,

as a British immigrant and a Newfoundlander, Michael identifies with the oppressed in Canadian society. Which is why he has taken on the CRAP cause. Many people fail to realize that punctuation marks have emotions too; but Michael can sense into that. He really feels the pain of all the periods who have been forced to the rear of their sentences—like second-class citizens of the literary world. And Michael understands the anguish of exclamation marks, who are contactually obliged to put on their happy faces—even though their hearts be breaking.

We here at CRAP have adopted the apostrophe as our poster boy; we’re using it to “brand” our campaign against asinine punctuation: the apostrophe will become our “swoosh.” For far too long authors have used the apostrophe divisively, forcing words apart which long to be united. If you press your ear against the cover of a typical Canadian novel you’ll hear the keening of all the sundered Ns and the Ts in words like “can’t” and “don’t”; but press your ear against the cover of The Architects Are Here and you’ll hear these gentle little murmers of contentment, as all those lonely consonants get to know each other once again.

In a two year old blog posting Michael Winter describes the epiphany which caused him to start stripping apostrophes from his manuscripts:

I just decided one day, what’s up with this symbol that tells the reader of a contraction. That two words have been sandwiched and a letter or two left out. Why do I have to remind the reader of this grammatical omission.

Those who wish to support Michael Winter and CRAP in their fight against asanine punctuation are encouraged to send donations directly to t&p. A $5 contribution covers the cost of training out-of-work apostrophes to rewarding new careers as part-time commas; $20 pays for the castration surgery which allows transgendered apostrophes to fully express their inner period.