The world is full of arguments about apostrophes. About farmers’ markets and farmers markets. About all those schools that do or don’t use apostrophes in their title. What’s a student at Melbourne Girls Grammar to make of Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar in the city’s north? Once that student has grown up and become a famous author, should she attend the apostrophe-free Melbourne Writers Festival and boycott the Sydney Writers’ Festival?

As someone who herds words for a living, I never expected to weigh in on a discussion over a decision made by Taylor Swift, but I feel duty-bound to dip into the debate that’s emerged over the title of her new album, The Tortured Poets Department. Could it be that Swift is slyly trying to torture a threatened species of English user, the speckled apostrophe stickler, by offering up neither a poet’s department nor a poets’ department? Articles have been written on this question; social media posts have been posted.

Taylor’s apostrophe-free version.Credit: Instagram

The former would apply if just one tortured poet owned the department, an unlikely scenario given the general impoverishment of tormented souls hoping to be paid for their rhyming couplets. But what about poets’ department? Could that be what’s called for and do we need to fume over the absence of a certain squiggle in Taylor’s version?

Unlike the case of the infamous greengrocer’s apostrophe (three carrot’s, anyone?) and the damaging effect unwarranted tadpole-shaped objects have on garden-variety plurals, what Swift has delivered is a fine version of a reminder that apostrophes can come with nuance, and that sympathising with those trying to do the right thing is what humanity needs.

If the word poets is meant to be merely descriptive, telling us this is a department where tortured poets are studied, Swift can safely stand her ground. If it’s a club where tortured poets can go and be morose together, implying a certain sense of ownership, an apostrophe wouldn’t be out of the question. Note that an apostrophe in the title of the Robin Williams movie Dead Poets Society, however, would have misleadingly suggested it was a zombie flick.

Is Swift appealing to the heavens for an answer on apostrophe use?Credit: Getty Images

Dead or facing torture – no wonder jolly poets are in such short supply. Jolly apostrophe sticklers may also be in short supply, as when nuance comes on the scene, so do the disagreements and possibilities for things to go either way. Rights and wrongs can blur.

The assistant standards editor at The New York Times backed Swift’s choice by saying, “The title is fine without an apostrophe; the Department of Veterans Affairs doesn’t use one. What’s good enough for the official nomenclature of the United States government should be good enough for Taylor Swift.”

However, the apostrophe-possessing Australian Department of Veterans’ Affairs may beg to differ.