For example:
I've come to not really mind people writing, "CD's and DVD's for sale," and the like (that's how the NYT does it). However, AP Style is to say someone is in their 20s, and temperatures are also sans apostrophe. Maybe just words, not numbers, need the apostrophe for clarity.Anyone else have different thoughts?
Thanks to Kimberly from Oregon for the photo!
2 comments:
I don't see how an apostrophe adds clarity in any of these cases. I didn't realize NYT does that; I wonder why they do. Seeing "CD's" for sale bugs me more than it probably should. What's the apostrphe doing there? Is it abbreviating "discs"?
Maybe I'm remembering my English classes from school incorrectly, but I remember being taught that an apostrophe was to be used for two things. First, when writing a contraction: don't, won't, can't, shouldn't. It was always to show a missing letter, thus creating the contraction. Second, when showing a possessive, the only exception I can think of being the it's vs. its issue.
So, things like CD's, DVD's, TV's, and the like irritate me to no end! Is it saying there is a missing letter as in a contraction? Or is it somehow saying that the CD, DVD or TV is in possession of something?
In the case of the picture here, when I took the photo, my mother-in-law was with me and we had quite the discussion regarding the sign. My thoughts were basically that if the word "Thousands" had been spelled out rather than written in numeric form (1000), there would not be an apostrophe, presuming that the person ordering the sign wouldn't make the mistake of adding an extraneous apostrophe as happens so often. So because 1000's was supposed to be representing the word Thousands, the apostrophe was extraneous and unnecessary in this case, as well.
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