Consumer Complaint
Okay, quick: if "flork" and "glanch" are nouns, what are their plurals?
You know and I know the answer is "florks" and "glanches", because we all learned the rule by osmosis if not explicitly that to form the plural in English, we add an "-s" to all words except those that end with a sibilant such as "-s", "-ch", or "-x", in which case we add "-es" ("glasses", "benches", "lynxes"). There are some irregular plurals and a fair number of exceptions (because English is all about exceptions), but for the most part, we add either "-s" or "-es" to a word to pluralize it.
But we do not ever add apostrophe-ess to a noun to make it plural. I wish someone would tell that the to the benighted scribbler at The Consumerist, who knows the word "kvetch" but doesn't know enough to keep from pluralizing it into "kvetch's". Honestly, how hard would it have been to spell it correctly as "kvetches"? Isn't that how he'd spell the verb form of the word? Or would he write "He kvetch's to me constantly"?
Naturally, since English has so many exceptions, there's one tiny exception to the never-apostrophize-a-plural rule, and it's this: sometimes, with abbreviations or single letters, we find it necessary to shove that apostrophe in there when it clarifies the situation--when merely appending the ess would make the meaning unclear (because clarity of expression transcends mere rules). The saying "Mind your p's and q's" is usually spelled with those apostrophes because there are two alternatives and neither of them is as good as the apostrophized version: "Mind your Ps and Qs" is sort of clear but odd-looking, and "Mind your ps and qs" is just impossible. (Those of us who believe that the expression arose as an admonition to children learning to write and spell will have to discard the first of these two alternatives because it doesn't make any sense in the context, but there are a lot of folk etymologies for the expression, some stupid, some compelling: check out these and make up your own mind.) So sometimes we have to grit our teeth and clarify an abbreviation by pluralizing with an apostrophe.
But "kvetch" is not an abbreviation.
You know and I know the answer is "florks" and "glanches", because we all learned the rule by osmosis if not explicitly that to form the plural in English, we add an "-s" to all words except those that end with a sibilant such as "-s", "-ch", or "-x", in which case we add "-es" ("glasses", "benches", "lynxes"). There are some irregular plurals and a fair number of exceptions (because English is all about exceptions), but for the most part, we add either "-s" or "-es" to a word to pluralize it.
But we do not ever add apostrophe-ess to a noun to make it plural. I wish someone would tell that the to the benighted scribbler at The Consumerist, who knows the word "kvetch" but doesn't know enough to keep from pluralizing it into "kvetch's". Honestly, how hard would it have been to spell it correctly as "kvetches"? Isn't that how he'd spell the verb form of the word? Or would he write "He kvetch's to me constantly"?
Naturally, since English has so many exceptions, there's one tiny exception to the never-apostrophize-a-plural rule, and it's this: sometimes, with abbreviations or single letters, we find it necessary to shove that apostrophe in there when it clarifies the situation--when merely appending the ess would make the meaning unclear (because clarity of expression transcends mere rules). The saying "Mind your p's and q's" is usually spelled with those apostrophes because there are two alternatives and neither of them is as good as the apostrophized version: "Mind your Ps and Qs" is sort of clear but odd-looking, and "Mind your ps and qs" is just impossible. (Those of us who believe that the expression arose as an admonition to children learning to write and spell will have to discard the first of these two alternatives because it doesn't make any sense in the context, but there are a lot of folk etymologies for the expression, some stupid, some compelling: check out these and make up your own mind.) So sometimes we have to grit our teeth and clarify an abbreviation by pluralizing with an apostrophe.
But "kvetch" is not an abbreviation.
posted by pyramus | 7:30 AM
1 Comments:
Slight tangent, but do you really think English has more exceptions than other languages? Most people say things like "Oh, English is so difficult to learn because of all the exceptions, while French/Spanish/whatever is so easy: once you know the rule, you just apply it." But I'm really beginning to look askance at this assertion.
Now, English might (and I emphasize the might) have more exceptions than the "average bear," particularly with regards to orthography, but French, for example, seems to have quite a number of its own quirks and inconsistences.
So, has anyone ever actually sat down and proven that English is "all exceptions and no rules," while other languages are paragons of simplicity, or do people just say it because that's what they've always been told?
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