Those troublesome apostrophe's
Arianna Huffington goes nonlinear in this great story on Salon about the misuse of apostrophes. You've all seen these type of mistakes, of course -- using an apostrophe to pluralize a noun. And you all know (god, I hope so, anyway!) that this is agrammatical. But when Huffington gets into a big fight with her daughter over this, her daughter refuses to believe that using an apostrophe to pluralize isn't acceptable, because everyone does it that way: Advertisers, other kids at school, and even -- remarkably -- the teachers at her kid's school.
But here's the rub. Huffington spies a pluralizing apostrophe in the New York Times, and the lid flies off:
Things only got worse the next morning when, while reading the New York Times, I came across not one, but two examples of apostrophes being put in the wrong place -- including one in a column by my hero, Paul Krugman. In writing about inherited wealth, the erudite Princeton professor made mention of "Today's imperial C.E.O.'s." Isabella's words echoed in my brain: "This is how everyone does it here."
Flummoxed, I got ahold of the New York Times' manual of style and, to my horror, discovered that the paper's rash of apostrophe errors had not been the result of sloppy copy-editing but a conscious executive decision to ignore the rules of proper punctuation.
Is it possible that grammar is going to change? That the apostrophe will eventually become so commonly misused for pluralization that it's eventually accepted as grammatically correct? After all, grammar is just an agreement of a set way of doing things.
In fact, I tend to get in fights with editors over my use of antiquated punctuation. Specifically, I frequently enjoy stringing tons of clauses together using semicolons. Then the drama begins: I'll submit a story full of them; the editor will go nuts; I'll resist; they'll fight back; and in the end, they'll remove just about any sentence that vaguely resembles the one I'm currently writing. Nicholson Baker once wrote a brilliant essay, reprinted in his The Size of Thoughts, called "The History of Punctuation." He noted a ton of really weird pieces of punctuation that once were considered grammatically correct, but have vanished like the dodo. One of them was a colon followed by an em-dash -- i.e. " :-- ". How cool is that? I've considered using stuff like that in stories, but I'm afraid my editors' heads would simply explode.
(Update: Franco Baseggio wrote me to note that Eugene Volokh has issued a very well-researched riposte to Huffington's article. Volokh checks the 1989 Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, the 1996 New Fowler's Modern English Usage, and the 1985 Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage, and finds they all accept the use of apostrophes for pluralization. "Seems to me that if the Language Police want to publicly accuse someone (even an anonymous someone), they should be quite sure that their targets are in fact guilty," he notes.
Point well taken -- though personally, apostrophic pluralizations still just kinda look wrong to me.)
Posted by Clive Thompson at December 20, 2002 02:05 PM
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I believe that it is acceptable to use apostrophes when you are trying to pluralize an acronym. For example, one might gather a collection of DVD's. It used to bug me to read this construction until I understood the reasoning behind it: the apostrophe clearly marks an addition to the typographic unit "DVD."
That way, there is no confusion over whether the "s" is part of the acronym or not.
BUT
Under what other circumstances can one use an apostrophe in pluralization? Examples, please!
Posted by: Erik at December 30, 2002 10:24 AM
Posted by: Clive at December 30, 2002 10:31 AM
Feh. Wrong, wrong, you can argue all day that it's right, but it's still wrong.
So there.
Posted by: El Rey at January 3, 2003 5:49 AM
Posted by: Clive at January 3, 2003 2:38 PM
mind you p's and q's is a nice example
Posted by: louis at April 6, 2003 5:39 AM
Yes! A very good, classic one.
Posted by: Clive at April 6, 2003 2:24 PM
Just thought I’d tell you that despite part of this site being about the correct use of apostrophes, you aren’t actually using apostrophes. You’re using foot and inch marks.
This mark ' is wrong, however this mark ’ is right. The difference is more noticeable in a serif font. The apostrophe should look the same as a comma , ’ not , ' you see.
Similarly speech marks should appear like this “ and ” not like this "
This isn’t a problem when using Microsoft word, because it changes the symbols for you, most other packages don’t
To get the correct marks you must use the alt commands, not the keys on the keyboard.
To use the alt commands you must hold down the alt key and type the relevant number on the number pad. (See below)
’ = 0146
“ = 0147
” = 0148
I know this is boring but once you keep noticing these errors it becomes distracting.
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Yes! A very good, classic one.
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I believe that it is acceptable to use apostrophes when you are trying to pluralize an acronym. For example, one might gather a collection of DVD's. It used to bug me to read this construction until I understood the reasoning behind it: the apostrophe clearly marks an addition to the typographic unit "DVD."
That way, there is no confusion over whether the "s" is part of the acronym or not.
BUT
Under what other circumstances can one use an apostrophe in pluralization? Examples, please!
Posted by: Erik at December 30, 2002 10:24 AM
I think that piece that Volokh wrote on his blog actually cites some of the examples given by Fowler's, etc -- http://volokh.blogspot.com/2002_12_15_volokh_archive.html#90060858 !
Posted by: Clive at December 30, 2002 10:31 AM
Feh. Wrong, wrong, you can argue all day that it's right, but it's still wrong.
So there.
Posted by: El Rey at January 3, 2003 5:49 AM
Heh.
Posted by: Clive at January 3, 2003 2:38 PM
mind you p's and q's is a nice example
Posted by: louis at April 6, 2003 5:39 AM
Yes! A very good, classic one.
Posted by: Clive at April 6, 2003 2:24 PM
Just thought I’d tell you that despite part of this site being about the correct use of apostrophes, you aren’t actually using apostrophes. You’re using foot and inch marks.
This mark ' is wrong, however this mark ’ is right. The difference is more noticeable in a serif font. The apostrophe should look the same as a comma , ’ not , ' you see.
Similarly speech marks should appear like this “ and ” not like this "
This isn’t a problem when using Microsoft word, because it changes the symbols for you, most other packages don’t
To get the correct marks you must use the alt commands, not the keys on the keyboard.
To use the alt commands you must hold down the alt key and type the relevant number on the number pad. (See below)
’ = 0146
“ = 0147
” = 0148
I know this is boring but once you keep noticing these errors it becomes distracting.
Posted by: james at December 5, 2003 9:11 AM
Yes! A very good, classic one.
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