Plural letters - Writers Forum

darthwader · 03-05-2006, 06:58 AM

I, for the most part, have a pretty good grasp of grammar and punctuation, (I just know someone is going to pick this post apart for accuracy now

) but there is something that I am having trouble with, and that is how to pluralise (that's a real word, how stupid does it sound?) letters and numbers. e.g.

If there are a lot of the letter A, are there As, or A's.

If there are multiples of 100, are there 100s, or 100's.

I'm pretty confident that it is the apostrophe versions, but I'm not 100% sure.

I know it's a stupid thing to ask, but considering the number of times I need it in my book, I had to ask.

Thanks for taking the time to read my idiocy.

Beardedtroll · 03-05-2006, 07:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darthwader

If there are a lot of the letter A, are there As, or A's.

According to "Eat, Shoots & Leaves -- the Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" by Lynne Truss, it's "A's."

Quote:

If there are multiples of 100, are there 100s, or 100's.

Wouldn't it make more sense to write it out as "hundreds"?

darthwader · 03-05-2006, 07:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beardedtroll
Wouldn't it make more sense to write it out as "hundreds"?

Not in this case, because in my story I have several types of ships which have alpha-numerical designations, e.g. the E-100, and the QQ-426.

Writing E-one hundred, or QQ-four two six, would not really work.

Thanks for the A's thing though. Don't you hate it when there is something stupid and simple, but you just don't quite know how to do it.

Beardedtroll · 03-05-2006, 07:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darthwader

Not in this case, because in my story I have several types of ships which have alpha-numerical designations, e.g. the E-100, and the QQ-426.

"Focus your fire on the two Q-210s. The E-100's armaments can't harm us."

darthwader · 03-05-2006, 07:46 AM

Thanks. I had a feeling that was how it should be, but because I always slept through my english lessons, there are some aspects that I'm left a bit uncertain about.

Thanks again.

mammamaia · 03-05-2006, 06:25 PM

troll... while i agree with the examples in your second post, do you realize that you contradicted the book's rule you cited in your first one?...

to the best of my knowledge, apostrophes are only used to form contractions and possessives... not for forming plurals of anything... thus, the proper way to show multiple letters or numbers, would be with the simple addition of an 's'... adding the apostrophe would make it a possessive, not a plural...

consider this: if you used it for both, how could one know which is meant when?...

Beardedtroll · 03-05-2006, 11:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mammamaia

troll... while i agree with the examples in your second post, do you realize that you contradicted the book's rule you cited in your first one?

I don't see that it does. The rule I cited was that apostrophes were used to form the plural of letters (and, according to another rule from the same book, words -- as in "How many if's and but's do you have?".) In my second post the subject is forming plural of names (here ending in numbers.)

Quote:

to the best of my knowledge, apostrophes are only used to form contractions and possessives... not for forming plurals of anything... thus, the proper way to show multiple letters or numbers, would be with the simple addition of an 's'... adding the apostrophe would make it a possessive, not a plural...

Well, I'm by no means an authoritity on English punctuation, but AskOxford claims the same thing.

Quote:

consider this: if you used it for both, how could one know which is meant when?...

In the same way we already separate between the apostrophe's use for denoting missing letters and its use for forming posessives: context.

Drzava · 03-06-2006, 12:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beardedtroll

"Focus your fire on the two Q-210s. The E-100's armaments can't harm us."

Lies! The E-100 destroys all!