I know it’s petty and probably shitty to go after grammar, but enough is enough. I read countless comments, tweets, blogs and smoke signals from you people on the daily, and by far the most common fuckup I see comes down to pluralizing cars. I cannot believe I have to reteach this to you.
Alright, as a quick refresher—The Apostrophe. There are many uses for it, but it’s primarily used in a contraction of two words (“it’s” for “it is” or “you’re” for “you are”) and for denoting possession (“Jason’s Figaro”).
It is NEVERused for indicating plurals.
Here is a collection of frustrating and incorrect examples:
- “My divorced dad had nine Corvette’s.”
- “I’ve always been a fan of the MR2’s.”
- “You sold 19 Honda’s today.”
- “Anyone who drives lifted F-150’s has no taste.”
Unless something belongs to the Corvette, MR2, Honda or F-150, you take that apostrophe and get the hell out.
And let us also remember the plural possessive, though not used nearly as much. If you have something belonging to multiple cars, it would look something like, “the Corvettes’ wheels.”
While we’re at it, years are never pluralized with apostrophes, either. “Ferrari’s of the 1980’s” is so, so wrong. It should be “Ferraris of the 1980s.” If you are, however, indicating a decade and leaving the first two numerals out, then use an apostrophe thusly: “muscle cars in the ‘70s.” It’s all explained here on the AP Style page from the Purdue Writing Lab.
I don’t know when botching pluralization became so commonplace. It’s not just with cars. I’ve seen signs at businesses that read: “No dog’s allowed,” “Reservation’s required,” “Bathroom’s not for public use” and “Apple’s and peach’s $4 a bushel.” Are we all just a pack of deranged animals now?
In fact, the issue has gotten so out of hand a society that dedicated itself to preserving the correct usage of the apostrophe is shutting down. No, I’m not making this up.
The Apostrophe Protection Society is a very real thing that was founded in 2001 by John Richards “with the specific aim of preserving the correct use of this currently much-abused punctuation mark in all forms of text written in the English Language,” its website reads.
Unfortunately, after nearly 20 years, Richards is shutting it down, reports the UK’s Evening Standard. He gives two reasons on the site. First, he’s 96 and therefore “cutting back on [his] commitments.” Second, he realizes fewer and fewer people and organizations appear to care about the apostrophe’s correct usage.
“We, and our many supporters worldwide,” he writes, “have done our best but the ignorance and laziness present in modern times have won!”
I cannot see how adding an apostrophe to pluralize something is lazy since it’s the physical addition of extra punctuation. Perhaps Richards means laziness for not bothering to fix the error and repeating it.
Anyway, I’ll not name names here because I’m not an asshole, but I needed to speak up about it. And to the trolls who will race straight past all this writing just to leave an incorrectly pluralized car in the comments, I commend you! You’re really original and clever and I bet every woman who’s ever laughed at your jokes did so because she genuinely thought you were funny.
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