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Boris Johnson's EU letter had an embarrassing typo and grammar pedants can't handle it

Boris Johnson's EU letter had an embarrassing typo and grammar pedants can't handle it
Getty/Twitter

In the grand scheme of all the truly unbelievable actions undertaken in parliament in the past 24 hours, poor grammar is probably not at the forefront of most people's minds.

Yet one delightfully eagle-eyed Twitter user just couldn't help himself.

The sentence in question reads:

We must bring this process to a conclusion so that we can move to the next phase and build our new relationship on the foundations of our long history as neighbours and friends in this continent our people's [sic] share.

Here's the problem.

The apostrophe implies that there is a share (noun) which belongs to a people.

Clearly, what Johnson meant to say was that the peoples of both the UK and the EU share (verb) a long history.

There is no apostrophe needed for a plural with no possessive.

People's responses were a veritable ode to petty pedantry, in the best possible way.

Once the apostrophe point had been settled, others went further and debated whether he even needed the "s".

While yes ideally No 10 would hire a proofreader of some sort, it's fair to say they likely have more important things to concern themselves with at this particular point in time.

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