A Word on the Words: How on earth did that apostrophe get into my bacon-flavoured snack?

In fact, this column is renowned throughout the English-speaking world for its staunch backing of Scottish manufacturing.

Possibly.

To this end, I have discovered a new, Scottish-produced bacon-flavour wheat snack. You know the sort of thing, shaped to look like a bacon rasher and tasting like, well, fried bacon.

There are several varieties on the market, all the big-name producers have their own version. But those made by Golden Cross Snacks, of Livingston, are the best I have ever tasted.

And, to further whet the appetite of any bacon-flavoured nibbles enthusiast, they are only 40p for a big bag. I was pleased with my purchase. Indeed, I intend to purchase more!

This is a Scottish success story. They are, let me be clear, a prince among snacks. The best I can remember trying. I thoroughly recommend that you try them too. Just visit a Tesco store, that’s where I bought them. This snack is going to be a huge hit.

Just one thing bothers me. The name. They are called Johnny’s Bacon Tasty’s.

How on earth did that apostrophe get into “Tasty’s”?

The offending packaging... — The offending packaging…

I initially thought, as you can see from the packet, that it might be Bacon Flavour Wheat Snacks that belong to Bacon Tasty. But this cannot be the case, because the Bacon Tasty is already the property of Johnny (whoever he is) at the top of the packet. You can’t have a possessive of a possessive. The Bacon Flavour Wheat Snacks would belong to Johnny, with no need for a middleman.

I should be inured to the abuse of the poor apostrophe by now. Their erroneous scattering throughout the plurals of the world is so widespread that I am now almost surprised to find a sign that advertises DVDs or Pizzas.

This latest misuse, however, is perplexing. I’m sure that with all the testing and tasting that goes into a new product these days, quite a few eyes must have seen the packaging. The flavours will have been tested, tasted, discussed and samples will have been savoured by focus groups. They’ll have pondered over the colour of the packet, which font to use and the size of the type.

But no one spotted this error.

This is possibly because they are all scientists or food experts and, faced with the fun of choosing bacon flavours, they completely forgot about good English usage.

You should all be pleased to know I have a remedy for this.

I’m not much of a scientist but there is a role here I could fill. Whenever any firm needs the name of their foodstuffs checked over for spelling errors, grammatical greatness or perfect punctuation – I’m your man.

I would, of course, have to sample the goods – extensively – because you can’t make decisions of this nature without immersing yourself in the product…

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