[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Seeking Grammar Police Ruling - Typo's

[Lee Kaiwen]

bboyminn:

> But that is my very point, I'm not saying that "'s" pluralizes
> anything. I'm saying it /contracts/ a phrase already ending in
> "s"; 'TYPOgraphical errorS'.

Not quite. What you're saying is that the apostrophe contracts it and 
then the "s" pluralizes it. But that would mean you're arguing that the 
proper contracted form of the singular "typographical error" would be " 
typo' " with an apostrophe. But if you don't hold that the contracted 
singular requires an apostrophe, why would the contracted plural?

OK, I looked up "typo" in five separate online dictionaries: 
Bartleby.com, AskOxford.com, CollinsLanguage.com, Dictionary.com and 
LDOCEonline.com. They all agree that the plural of "typo" is "typos".

> Consider, for example "int'l" for 'international' . The "'l"
> logically doesn't make it plural

Of course not, since the plural morpheme in English is "s". But note 
that in this example, the apostrophe denotes an omission from the middle 
of the word, not the end.  Generally, when we omit stuff from the end of 
a word, we call it an abbreviation, not a contraction, and we terminate 
it with a period. To use your example, if we were to omit the "l" along 
with the "ernationa" we'd write it: "int." not "int'".

Let's play with your example further. The form "internationals" is often 
used nominally as a synonym for "aliens". If we contracted it according 
to the accept norm, it'd be "int'ls". If we wanted to omit the "l" also, 
  then we'd have an abbreviation, not a contraction, and the general 
rule is to include the s before the period, such as "capts.", "corps." 
or "Revs." (for "Reverends").

> In my case, my use of "'s" says that several letters have been
> left out between the 'o' and the 's'. I'm not pluralizing the
> phrase because the phrase is already plural.

But you don't contract a plural phrase. You contract the singular form, 
then follow the usual English rules for adding the plural "s".

CJ