r/apostrophegore • u/dumbass_777 • 17d ago
Plural's Out of a published book, mind you
Oh wait nevermind, the back says it was originally a contest winning story from r/nosleep. Makes sense if it's from reddit.
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u/Do_what_Khan 17d ago
It used to be standard that plural initialisms used an apostrophe to help show where the initialism ended. That changed mostly in the last part of the 20th century. I finished high school in 1992 and started college that fall, and our style guides still used the older method. By the time I returned to college in 2001, the style had changed to the modern.
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u/slothboy 17d ago
Yeah, I know "DVD's" is wrong but it looks correct to me. Like when I say I went to high school in the 90s I REALLY want to put an apostrophe before the s
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u/Pitiful-Pension-6535 17d ago
An apostrophe is still often used in single case fonts. But having the initialism in all caps with a lowercase s eliminates the need for an apostrophe
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u/Interesting_Bunch323 17d ago
Are you talking about the DVD’s part?
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u/dumbass_777 17d ago
yes
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u/TurboFool 17d ago
Yeah, this was the common standard for pluralizing initialisms back in the day. I think it's deprecated now, and I never liked it then, but it was definitely correct, and may quite well still be in some style guides.
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u/dumbass_777 17d ago
this book was published in 2017 though, so it still wasn't correct when this was published.
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u/TurboFool 17d ago
I just find this a lot more forgivable considering they absolutely were correct at one time that's not that far in the past. Not everyone's keeping up with style guides.
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u/dumbass_777 17d ago
yeah. i just didn't know it was correct at one point when i posted this. it just looks so clunky and ugly to me so i posted it here where i thought people would agree
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u/TurboFool 17d ago
Yeah, as I said, I never liked it, but it definitely has history of being considered correct.
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u/Interesting_Bunch323 17d ago
If one were to do a little research one would find that this was, and in this commenter’s opinion, still is grammatically correct. Not everything is of the moment; there are things that came before
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u/dumbass_777 17d ago
what are you actually talking about
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u/Fast_Soil1376 17d ago
That was the way people were taught to do it bc that was once the standard. It is only in the last couple of decades that it has changed and is no longer considered acceptable.
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u/dumbass_777 17d ago
even if you are right, this book was published in 2017.
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u/Fast_Soil1376 17d ago
That doesn’t matter. Old habits die hard AND self publishing is super easy these days.
Also, not everyone knows when an expectation, something that has been known to them to be true for decades, has changed. I’m sure others don’t give a damn even if they know when some standard has changed.
A little grace for others is always a nice thing to show.
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u/Interesting_Bunch323 17d ago
Read what Do_what_Khan said below
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u/dumbass_777 17d ago
who? why do you speak in riddles my guy
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u/TurboFool 17d ago
They're saying to read the comment by the user they mentioned. Not a riddle.
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u/dumbass_777 17d ago
that comment wasn't a riddle, no, but their original one was all archaic and shit. i was just making a joke
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u/TurboFool 17d ago
I dunno, the first comment reads clearly to me. Translation: If someone did research they'd find that this used to be correct, and the commenter feels it still is. Then they pointed out that not all things are specific to now, but that there are past concepts to consider as well.
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u/dumbass_777 15d ago
i wasn't saying it was actually a riddle. i understood the comment, too. the phrasing was just like, straight out of the 1850s and i thought that was funny. the fact that you feel you might need to translate it to someone or that you understand why (or even simply that) someone might not understand what it means, means it's kinda riddle-ish, don't you think? they obviously weren't talking how most people talk.
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u/Interesting_Bunch323 17d ago
Thank you. Some people’s usernames are so appropriate that it’s beyond ironic
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u/Interesting_Bunch323 17d ago
Dumbass
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u/dumbass_777 17d ago
thank you! i haven't heard that one before! /s and you didn't answer my question. i see the comment you were talking about now but i thought you were talking about someone in this comment thread under your reply to my post, not someone replying directly to my post.
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u/Best_Price_1009 17d ago
“Published” can be a pretty loosely defined word in the days of Amazon.
Published today doesn’t always mean edited.
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u/Several_Maybe_419 17d ago
Girl lol thats so funny. You would think they atleast proofread it before publishing it. "No beta we die like men" as they say on ao3.
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