Folks, the apostrophe is a touchy subject, especially when referring to a farmer oriented market. An apostrophe denotes possession or ownership. Living in America it seems like possession is everything. It denotes power, prestige, entitlement, dare I say, rights. All of the things that make America great, of course. There are hardliners that would recoil, if not get outright hostile, at the notion of operating a farmers market without including the apostrophe at the end of the word farmers, like this: farmers’.
It seems so trivial but that apostrophe means quite a bit to many people. It denotes a hand in the ownership of the market. Some people are driven to the power of language over substance or action. I am not one of those people.
During our formative months we spent quite a bit of time going around and around as to whether we should include the apostrophe in the name of our organization, as in, Crested Butte Farmers’ Market. The decision came down that we were going to skip the inclusion of the apostrophe in the name of our organization. It is not without reason and it doesn’t mean that we are any less hardcore for the omission. Let me explain.
A farmers’ market denotes that the market is generally possessed by the agriculturalists from the particular region in which it operates. It is true that without farmers there would be no farmers’ markets. Crested Butte, indeed the entire north end of the Gunnison Valley, has NO farmers. For those that might balk, yes, there is Round Mountain Institute about 10 miles south of town. I am a great admirer of Miss Nancy Wicks and I like to brag that I am probably her greatest student but Nancy has for a while been moving away from farming into education. She has done well for herself with this endeavor, but she would not qualify as a farmer in a farmers’ market sense.
Crested Butte would need to possess farmers for there to accurately be a Crested Butte Farmers’ Market. All of our participating agriculturalists travel about 80 – 90 miles each way to arrive in Crested Butte Sundays between June and October. I am increasingly grateful that they do and the food seems to be getting better year after year as we build our symbiotic relationship. These folks come from the Western Slope. Beautiful places like, Paonia, Delta, Montrose, Hotchkiss, and Olathe that I have had the business and pleasure to go and visit in person. If we were to use the apostrophe appropriately for the market we operate in Crested Butte we would accurately denote the market thusly: the Paonia, Delta, Montrose, Hotchkiss and Olathe Farmers’ Market, not the Crested Butte Farmers’ Market. Or we could try: Neighboring Western Slope Farmers’ Market. I am aware that we are operating in something like a semantical mobius strip here.
Our bigger mission and purpose is to inspire the reality of making a living in Crested Butte through the avenue of localized agriculture and farming. Notice that I didn’t say make money. I place greater value on accountable food to livelihood than money. I also notice that money most times doesn’t necessarily allow access to the most accountable food sources. Getting Crested Butte to get agricultural is a LONG term goal. When Crested Butte has more Crested Butte farmers at the CB Farmers Market, (or any) we will proudly proclaim, “Mission Accomplished” and change our organization name to the Crested Butte Farmers’ Market. But then, I prefer to use our budget for even less ridiculous things, like our third Annual Peach Pit Spitting Competition coming up in early September! Longest peach pit spit gets 2 tickets to the Buddy Guy headlined Telluride Blues and Brews Festival. The Guy’s a damn living legend, alright.
As such we firmly stand behind the decision to call ourselves the Crested Butte Farmers Market. Not only because our farmers are not from Crested Butte but for typographical reasons as well. With the combination of antiseptic digital technology with the dirty fingernail business of organic farming there are certain adjustments that need to be made. Web domains can not possess an apostrophe. Punctuation in general is frowned upon in domain addresses. But it is impossible to get an apostrophe in a website name. Therefore we would have a copy editing nightmare trying to check every domain and signage reference for appropriate placement of an apostrophe or the removal thereof. We are a volunteer run operation. Does anyone want to volunteer for such a tedious and anal retentive use of their time? I can’t even sell the notion to myself. Therefore, to keep our copy straight and to assist our friends and contacts we have dropped the apostrophe from our organization name. You can blame the encroachment of digital programming upon the English language if you’re of the ilk that needs to spend more time blaming instead of having fun.
One more aspect to add to the mix. As a board member of the Colorado Farmers’ Market Association (note the apostrophe denoting possession by Colorado’s farmers) I spent much of the last year determining a definition of a farmers’ market. It largely centered around the concept of being tailored to the individual community within which it functions along with direct food producer to consumer relationships. Therefore, it is unfranchiseable. (Barring totally crappy concepts like Celebration, Florida.) This is an important distinction considering the attempts of certain larger franchise chains to co-opt the farmers’ market zeitgeist. The Crested Butte Farmers Market is organized to keep the community of Crested Butte front and center while inspiring high quality, accountable, local agriculture in a literal grass roots sense. Our board is composed of 7 members. Our bylaws state that the board must be composed of a majority of Crested Butte/Mt. Crested Butte citizens. This protects the community within which the farmers operate from outside business exploitations and internal skirmishing. In fact, four of our present board members are not vendors at the market to keep potential conflicts of interest in check. We could therefore accurately label our event Crested Butte’s Farmers Market. But that might alienate or agitate the farmers more than we want to by denoting ownership by Crested Butte and the exploitation of farmers. We are attempting to empower agriculturalists, not exploit them. In America even, go figure.
This is all as clear as mud of course.
None of this prevents the myriad professionals that I deal with on a daily basis from attempting to stick an apostrophe in our organization’s name somewhere. As if there is no reason behind ousting the apostrophe in the first place.
Generally speaking, I know I don’t know what I’m doing. That doesn’t mean that I don’t know appropriate placement of apostrophes. Just one of the many glorious endeavors of managing a high altitude farmers’ market…farmer’s…farmers’s….farmers’s'….farmers….
How about the Crested Butte Farmer-Oriented Market?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
This is (honestly) one of the most well-written editorials I’ve read in a long time, and I’m DAMNED proud it were dun by mah big brother.
you’re the one with the fancy private school degree. you tell me.