Spelling nazis

[Badjelly]

This business of adding "apostrophe s" to irregular words, like numerals, letters and acronyms, to form the plural is problematic. (It doubtless encourages people to add "apostrophe s" to form plurals willy nilly. I mean, "Barry's Bus's" for heaven's sake!) I don't know exactly how or why it (meaning "apostrophe s" on irregular words) arose, but it is common and arguably correct in some situations. Perhaps the apostrophe is supposed to stand for the missing words in an abbreviation, eg. "You should be careful how you pluralise TLA's". Here the apostrophe might be said to stand for the missing part of "acronym".

I follow the slippery-slope principle and never use apostrophes in forming plurals.

[Hitcher]

I follow the slippery-slope principle and never use apostrophes in forming plurals.

Apart from incorrectly using one in buses...

With few exceptions, apostrophe usage is pretty straightforward. In those exceptional cases the trick is consistency of usage. Some people may consistently do something different, but that does not make it "wrong".

Enough! We have done this to death before.

[slofox]

I must say this thread has gone on a lot longer than I thought.

(please note the careful capitalisation and the correct use of 's' involved)

Well maybe this was written specially for you mister.koz........

http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/sh...ad.php?t=87464

[MSTRS:Me]

Enough! We have done this to death before.

Do I sense a ploderator's warning?

[Winston001]

'ang about - Barrys Bus's what? Back seat? I'm all aquiver here.......

And whut about that 250mph military pig? Does it ride in the bus?

[Badjelly]

Barrys Bus's what?

There's a company in the northern South Island that has "Barry's Bus's" written on all its vehicles. (They're more vans than bus's .. I mean buses.)

And that, I fear, will be all I have to say on this subject for the time being. I do not wish to further provoke the Balrog.

[PrincessBandit]

errrrr is that APOSTROPHE...perchance...?

Isn't it what Smee had (from the movie Hook) instead of an epiphany? I have apostrophes all the time.......