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You forgot to attach the gigachad image (thelemmy.club)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://piefed.zip/c/politicalmemes@piefed.zip/p/1623896/you-forgot-to-attach-the-gigachad-image

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[–] 12 points 2 months ago (15 children)

Is it ever appropriate to use an apostrophe to pluralize a word?

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 child)

    Is it ever appropriate to use an apostrophe to pluralize a word?

    I stumbled upon exceptions on Wikipedia not long ago including, e.g., pluralizing single letters (Oakland A's) and symbols (#'s).

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    I was wondering about that. I assumed there wasn't exceptions, because those can still be possessive. Oakland A's members or 13's unlucky superstition. I'm not surprised though, because English is a stupid mess of a language.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (8 children)

    I'm not natively English but isn't that always when you could read it wrong without the apostrophe? E.g. it's zoos and bows, but not hos?

    Edit: this example doesn't really do much, since you could argue about it's ho's nazi or a nazi's ho, and hoes is probably more correct anyway. I retract myself from this discussion.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Not native either, but pretty sure apostrophe-s is about ownership whereas just s is about plural. eg.:

    "It's a dog's bark."

    "The dogs are barking."

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    "Its" vs "it's" is probably the most common mistake in the English language. Apostrophe is used for ownership as well as contraction, BUT contraction supersedes ownership. So its means ownership and it's means it is.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    Not quite. No apostrophe usually means plural. With apostrophe means possessive or a contraction (what is to what's). Its/it's is an edge case where the possessive "its" has no apostrophe and contraction "it's" does.

    All that being said, native speakers mistype all of these all of the time, so you don't have to worry about it for casual conversation.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    Nah, but that is how some people view and use it. It doesn't bother me personally if it seems intentional to quicken clarity. It at least makes more sense to me than possession on a name ending in 's', E.G. Bernie Sanders' policies. It breaks down further if the Sanders had a family reunion, what is the Sanderses'? Sanders'? preference for food?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Afaik it's not just how people use it but what has been agreed upon by the respective rulemakers. I was just commenting on whether it's appropriate though, completely agree it's arbitrary and imperfect.

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