Editor’s Plea For Life Saving Plural “S”

Or how to drive your editor crazy  with one simple mistake.

 

Editing is a critical element when thinking of publishing a book, or even sending it to a publisher. this weeks posts will be focused on editing related topics, and we are happy to reblog posts written by writers or by editors.

Today’s topic is an editor’s worst pet peeves, the misapplied  “s”.

 

Please. It’s Pleas not Plea’s

by Terri Herman-Ponce

Since when have we had such problems in figuring out when to use an “apostrophe s” as opposed to a “plural s”? Is it really that hard?

Here’s what I’m talking about. I saw a blog post the other day that said something like:

Courtesy of snowbringer and deviantart

I’m buying flower’s today.

Really? Flower’s?

Oh. My. God. I’m about to get hives just thinking about this. It totally boggles.

So let’s (yes, that’s let’s with an apostrophe!) get this more info straight, okay?

Apostrophes are used for possessive nouns, like:

That is Katy’s hat.

The apostrophe in Katy’s name indicates she owns the hat, hence the possessive noun.

Apostrophes are used for contractions, where two words are shortened into one, such as:

Richard’s going to the store to buy a shirt.

Richard’s, in this case, is short for Richard is.

Apostrophes are never used for plural nouns (unless it’s plural and possessive, but let’s not go there; things will only get more confusing), as shown below:

Buy your windows and doors here.

If you write it as Buy your window’s and door’s here, what you’re really saying is Buy your window is and door is here.  See how very wrong that is?

Okay, lesson done for the day. My eye is still twitching but at least I feel a bit better now for getting this off my chest.