The Apostrophe: To Add or Not To Add

The apostrophe helps us form contractions (what’s new), it shows that something is missing (rock ‘n’ roll), and it helps us create possessives and plurals. Here’s how to correctly use apostrophes with plurals of letters and numbers.

When you have a single letter and you want to make it plural, add an apostrophe:
• Mind your p’s and q’s.*
• He reviewed the contract to be sure he had crossed all the t’s and dotted all the i’s.
• The Oakland A’s play the Minnesota Twins on Saturday.

When you have a word and want to make it plural, do not add an apostrophe:
• He cluttered his presentation with too many “ands.”
• His life is full of regrets about “should-haves.”
• How many “pleases” does your child say in a day?

(Exceptions: “Thank you’s” and “do’s and don’ts” have apostrophes to clarify their pronunciation. “Yous” could be slang — think Sylvester Stallone — and dos could be confused with the old DOS computer operating system.)

When you have multiple letters, do not add an apostrophe:
• She knew her ABCs by the time she started nursery school.
• Four VIPs joined Prince Charles in his box seats at the opera.
• Someone vandalized all of the bank’s ATMs.

When you add an s to numbers, do not add an apostrophe:
• He’s writing about the music of the 1960s.
• Temperatures dropped into the low 20s last night.
• There were two 727s waiting on the tarmac.
• She said both size 9s were too loose.

*And now for those of you who want to mind your p’s and q’s but are not sure of what they are, check this out:
www.straightdope.com/columns/read/761/whats-the-origin-of-the-expression-mind-your-ps-and-qs

Ruthless Editor follows The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law guidelines for word and punctuation usage. Webster's New World College Dictionary serves as a secondary reference.

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