The Tortured Poets Department: Is Taylor Swift’s grammar correct?

Article content

The title of Taylor Swift’s upcoming album has sparked a grammar debate. During her acceptance speech for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 2024 Grammy Awards, Swift revealed that her upcoming 11th studio album would be called “The Tortured Poets Department.”

Soon after, people took to the internet to weigh in on whether or not “Poets” should have an apostrophe.

Article content

“Am I the only one highly bothered (by) any lack of apostrophe?” asked X user @TheFontLawyer in a post. “I need answers…and an apostrophe.”

Amy Nawrocki, the Dean of the College of Science and Society and an English professor at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, said the title of Swift’s new album is grammatically correct, depending on the meaning. There are other ways it could be correct using an apostrophe.

“Not having an apostrophe is absolutely grammatically acceptable because the phrase is working as a descriptor, it’s not a possessive case,” Nawrocki said.

“(The version) without an apostrophe implies that the department is described as being of or by tortured poets.”

Article content

Writer Olivia Rutigliano came to the same conclusion in a post published by Literary Hub. “In order for the grammar to be correct, in this department, everyone would study and teach about tortured poets, not simply be tortured poets.”

The title is technically grammatically correct, but it depends on Swift’s intended meaning. Some fans thought the title makes sense.

“Tortured poets is descriptive. The department is filled with tortured poets, it doesn’t belong to them,” said TikTok user @mariel.mp3 in a video. “I want so badly for this to be a reference to her ex, like she gets her boyfriends from ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ at the grocery store.”

Nawrocki explained that the album name would have an entirely different meaning with an apostrophe.

“When using the apostrophe ‘s,’ (Poet’s) implies that there is one poet who owns the department. For the second one, when the apostrophe is used after ‘S,’ (Poets’) the plural and possessive imply that there are multiple poets and they all own the department.”

Swift has not responded to any of the speculation regarding the album’s title.

Article content

During her acceptance speech, Swift noted that she had kept her upcoming album a secret for the past two years. Following her relationship timeline, fans have speculated that this would fall in line with the ending of her previous relationship with English actor Joe Alwyn.

“You’re Losing Me,” a heartbreak-driven song believed to be about Alwyn, was confirmed to have been written and produced on Dec. 5, 2021, by her producer Jack Antonoff via an Instagram story when the song was released on streaming platforms in November 2023. This implies she began creating her new album around the same time she wrote “You’re Losing Me.”

Swift’s new album title holds an eerie similarity to the trending group chat Alwyn spoke about being in with fellow actor Paul Mescal during an interview with Variety, called The Tortured Man Club.

The group chat’s name, according to how it’s referred to online, does not use an apostrophe.

Others have said Swift might have also been inspired by the film Dead Poets Society, a popular 1989 coming-of-age movie whose title follows a similar grammatical structure as “The Tortured Poets Department.”

Article content

While the film alludes to an organization of poets, it’s possible that Swift also found inspiration in the film’s title due to the fact that it was released in 1989, the year of Swift’s birth and the title of one of her most popular albums to date.

Though the megastar’s intentions haven’t been confirmed, Nawrocki offered her own interpretation of the album’s meaning.

“In my understanding, it means she’s describing … a department of tortured poets, and that’s kind of beautiful,” she said. “I think the idea of exploring every element of life that a poet or musician could explore in an album is wonderful. I’m curious to hear the album and see how the tortured part of it comes in.”

Article content