Almost five years ago, I almost fell off my chair when I came across this otherworldly headline of a CNN.com news story: “Pregnant pastor’s wife shot, killed in home invasion in Indianapolis.” My mind saw the ghastly image of a pregnant church minister grieving over the body of his slain wife, but then it struck me as highly improbable that the pastor — he should be male according to church tradition — was the one heavy with child.

Neither gender role inversion nor violation of the natural order of things was involved in that tragic incident, however. It was in fact the pastor’s slain wife who was pregnant, but the headline writer had messed up his grammar in applying the possessive apostrophe-“s.” That headline should have been written as “Pastor’s pregnant wife shot, killed in home invasion in Indianapolis,” to reflect the correct sense of that news story’s lead sentence — a pregnant wife of an Indianapolis pastor was shot and killed.