this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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[–] Beanie@programming.dev 48 points 3 months ago (2 children)

That's half-right. Upper-case letters aren't pluralised with apostrophes but lower-case letters are. (So the plural of 'R' is 'Rs' but the plural of 'r' is 'r's'.) With numbers (written as '123') it's optional - IIRC, it's more popular in Britain to pluralise with apostrophes and more popular in America to pluralise without. (And of course numbers written as words are never pluralised with apostrophes.) Acronyms are indeed not pluralised with apostrophes if they're written in all caps. I'm not sure what you mean by decades.

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 18 points 3 months ago (2 children)

By decades they meant "the 1970s" or "the 60s"

I don't know if we can rely on British popularity, given y'all's prevalence of the "greengrocer's apostrophe."

[–] ProfessorProteus@lemmy.world 18 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Never heard of the greengrocer's apostrophe so I looked it up. https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-greengrocers-apostrophe-1690826

I absolutely love that there's a group called the Apostrophe Protection Society. Is there something like that for the Oxford Comma? I'd gladly join them!

[–] SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago

I will die on both of those hills alongside you.

[–] Beanie@programming.dev 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Hah, I do not like the greengrocer's apostrophe. It is just wrong no matter how you look at it. The Oxford comma is a little different - it's not technically wrong, but it should only be used to avoid confusion.

[–] VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works 0 points 3 months ago

I use it for fun, frivolity, and beauty.

[–] Beanie@programming.dev 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Oh right - that would be the same category as numbers then. (Looked it up out of curiosity: using apostrophes isn't incorrect, but it seems to be an older/less formal way of pluralising them.)

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Now, plurals aside, which is better,

The 60s

Or

The '60s

?

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)
[–] bisby@lemmy.world 18 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Because otherwise if you have too many small letters in a row it stops looking like a plural and more like a misspelled word. Because capitalization differences you can make more sense of As but not so much as.

[–] psud@aussie.zone 5 points 3 months ago

As

That looks like an oddly capitalised "as"

That really gives the reason it's acceptable to use apostrophes when pluralising that sort of case

[–] GetOffMyLan@programming.dev -4 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's not stupid. It's just the bastard child of Germany, Dutch, French, Celtic and Scandinavian and tries to pretend this mix of influences is cool and normal.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Victim blaming and ableism!

The French and Scandinavian bits were NOT consensual.

(Don't forget Latin btw)

[–] roguetrick@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

There are plenty of non Norman consensual French words and the Danes had as much a right to be there as the Angles and the Saxons did in kicking the celts out. Let's not even talk about if the anglo-Saxons had more legitimate claim than the norse-gaels.