If asked which grammar rule grinds our gears the most, it would be apostrophe usage. Not only because it’s so often misused; the rule itself is flawed and leaves room for error and confusion.
It sounds so simple: pluralize nouns by adding an s, identify possession with an apostrophe then s (or just an apostrophe if the word already ends in s).
Here’s an example of proper usage:
“Dogs (plural) like chasing my friend’s (possessive) cat. Sometimes, the cat gets fed up and challenges the dogs'(possessive plural) bravery.”
This is what we all learned in school and have ingrained in our brains to always be the case, no exceptions.
But there ARE exceptions, and this is where people start to un-learn the basic rules and make mistakes. In order to pluralize abbreviations, acronyms, letters, and numbers, a simple s won’t always do. In some cases case, we may need that darned apostrophe again, even though we’ve been told never to use it to pluralize.
Here’s an example:
“Only angry CEO’s have to remind their number 1’s to to cross their t’s and dot their i’s!”
breaks the rule, but looks correct.
“Only angry CEOs have to remind their number 1s to to cross their ts and dot their is!”
follows the rule, but looks incorrect.
This is open to debate, which frustrates me; at this point in the long history of the English language we should have arrived at a decision here, right?!
When people see exceptions like these, they struggle with their knowledge of the basic plural vs. possessive rules, and we end up with situations like this:
And errors like this:
Another great example is the iPhone 5s. When it came out, I asked my coworkers what the plural would be. Two iPhone 5ss? Two iPhone 5s’? Two iPhones 5s? There’s no clear answer.
In conclusion, please remember that in MOST cases, you should never use an apostrophe to pluralize a noun. Only do this if it’s an acronym, abbreviation, number, or letter, or if it just looks plain wrong.
Please let us know what you think of this rule and its exceptions, and if you’ve seen any funny examples of mistakes it has caused.
References:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/apostrophe
http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/acronyms.html
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/when-to-form-a-plural-with-an-apostrophe/
