Apostrophes have no place in plural acronyms
The proper use of apostrophes when denoting plural or possessive nouns is the subject of many tutorials, especially the rule-breaker “its/it’s.” But there should be no debate about whether acronyms or other all-capitalized or numeric constructions should include an apostrophe when made plural: they shouldn’t!
Public Enemy #1 – “FAQ’s”
“FAQ’s” is wrong because the author intended to describe a list of many questions and their answers. That would be: FAQs, where the absence of an apostrophe makes the s in FAQs plural. (The question of whether an s is necessary at all is a different issue; personally I have no problem with it.) When written with the apostrophe, it becomes possessive. Creating a plural or possessive form of an acronym is done just like any other noun. Yet writers who would never slip up and write “Click here to read about our car’s!” often do write “Click here to read our FAQ’s!”
Public Enemy #2 – “The 80′s”
No, not specifically the 80s (which were awesome), but the plural form of any decade, such as “in the 1960s” or “the roaring ’20s.” When used in this form, the decade becomes a plural noun and should be treated as such. Some examples (including a singular year for comparison):
- “New wave was the second-best thing about the ’80s; the first was the Smurfs!”
- “I’m wearing this stone-washed denim jacket and these parachute pants to the ’80s party tonight.”
- “Ronald Reagan was nominated for president in 1980.”
One of these two AdSense advertisers has it right. Hint: it's not the one on the right.
If there were a case of a possessive decade—which is certainly more rare—it would be written as: “Those are the ’80′s Pop-Rocks!” (Meaning, the Pop-Rocks belong to the entity 80s.) Luckily, there’s not much call for this construction, which makes it much easier to spot the incorrect plurals containing an apostrophe before the s.
Public Enemy #3 – “From the low $300′s”
Having once worked for a homebuilder’s marketing department, I often had to explain that homes’ starting prices should not include apostrophes. You’ve probably examples of this mistakenly-placed apostrophe yourself on many of the real-estate development signs clustered around busy intersections like a patch of over-zealous mushrooms. “Prices from the low $300′s” or “Homes starting in the high $200′s” these signs exclaim. Wrong. Not the prices themselves (though they sure seemed that way sometimes), but the apostrophe.
Style, Value, Location and Improper Apostrophes.
Generalized price points like these should not include an apostrophe. As with decades, including one turns the number from the writer’s intended plural meaning into an incorrect possessive meaning. In this example, the meaning conveyed is that home prices start somewhere around, say, $305,000 to $320,000 (and go up from there, of course, with lot premiums, configuration options, etc.). Properly generalizing this range means writing it as: “from the low $300s” without an apostrophe; $300s being the plural form of the home prices around the low end of $300,000.
Why?
The correct plural-vs.-possessive use of apostrophes can be tricky for some, a fact I blame largely on its-vs.-it’s, whose proper usage seems backwards to the rule for most other words. (“it’s” is a contraction of “it is” or “it has” instead of the possessive form if “it.”) But when it comes to plural acronyms and numeric constructions like “the ’60s” or “starting in the high $100s,” I think the cause of the incorrect apostrophe use is simple: people just don’t like seeing an s following a capital letter or number. To them, it just “looks wrong” so they drop an apostrophe in to separate them. (It’s for the same reason some people write “Monday’s” or “Saturday’s”: they don’t like the look of the plural-creating s right after a capitalized word. Of course, this is wrong—unless they’re talking about the restaurant TGI Friday’s.)
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CM14 6.77 and 6.82 give examples where a non-possessive, plural apostrophe is allowed:
Tim had enough of her “maybe’s.”
Mind your p’s and q’s.
And I would add: Do’s and don’ts.
I noticed an article over at A List Apart discussing the usability of FAQs on websites. I’m happy to note the author uses the proper form: FAQs.
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/infrequently-asked-questions-of-faqs/
Shouldn’t the correct possessive form of the ’80s be, using your example, “the ’80s’ Pop-Rocks”, or to make it more clear, by dropping the lead apostrophe: “the 80s’ Pop-Rocks”? Since the grouping of the years for each decade is already plural, won’t the apostrophe follow the plural “s”?
BTW, matt: it seems to me that using the construction, “Do’s and Don’ts” is more confusing, specifically because the contraction in “Don’t” prevents you from using the same convention with both words, i.e., “Don’t's”. (Did I put enough marks in there?) I should think that “Dos and Don’ts” will give less pause to the average reader. Granted, the subject choice of Scott’s present battle, and the conflicting views of the NY Times with much of the traditional publishing world, make it likely that the reader is already quite confused. :-)
I think the reason apostrophes are so so tempting is because they are used for other abbreviations (e.g. don’t for do not) and it feels like an acronym is just another sort of abbreviation.
While losing the apostrophe reduced ambiguity with the possessive, there is no perfection in either choice: some acronyms are ruined by the lack of an apostrophe – for example common file extensions which are increasingly cited in lowercase: dlls, exes, pdfs; these tlas are now flas!