Dear Mary

Q. Friends have just moved into a new house — let’s call it Gamekeepers Folly. I am planning to give them a handmade visitors’ book as a present, but am in somewhat of a quandary as to what to tell the embosser to put on the front. Should I have the missing apostrophe inserted or not? The official records do not have it. My friends are well-educated people but I have not yet had their new notepaper so do not know if they have picked up the point. And if so, should I assume there was only one (‘Gamekeeper’), or several?

— Name withheld, Shaftesbury

A. If it really were called ‘Gamekeeper’s Folly’ then the apostrophe would go before the ‘s’. However you have not revealed the true name of the house. There are addresses where incorrect grammar has, through long misuse, become correct, but you cannot assume this is one of them. Put yourself out of the picture by leaving it to the bookbinder to telephone the enquiry about the required spelling. A professional would be at liberty to press for accuracy without seeming to be scoring points — something you appear worried about.

Q. I recently wrote a piece of polemic for a mainstream daily broadsheet. To my dismay, the sub-editors replaced ‘might’ with ‘may’ all the way through. I feel that writing to the editor or the Letters page would only make me look Pooterish. How, having been traduced in this way, can I continue to hold my head up in the company of educated people?

— R.H., address withheld

A. Enlist the help of an academic friend, ideally an English don, who will write to the editor to express his amazement that someone of the standing of R.H.