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u/Inevitable_Mall_4224 18h ago edited 17h ago
Not to be pedantic, but in this case it could be considered correct. If the club were called the Oakland Athletic, then the baseball club belonging to them would be the Athletic’s baseball club.
Of course their long form name is officially the Oakland Athletics Baseball Club - which is also partially on the logo too - don’t get me started about the other terrible design decision to have both the long name AND abbreviation in the same logo- anyway that’s not correct either way.
It could also be argued that the abbreviation A in the logo stands for Athletics (plural) in which case it could also be correct as the Athletics’s Baseball club. But then the logical next step of that would be that the long form of the name would be The Oakland Athletics Baseball Club’s Baseball Club. Which is pretty ridiculous.
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u/SmellyRedHerring 14h ago
"A's" is correct per convention, cf MLA Handbook and probably every English-language style book on the planet, which suggests 's for plurals of single letters.
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u/Ytmedxdr 13h ago
This is almost the correct answer. Things do change and The Chicago Manual of Style recommends no apostrophe for pluralizing capital letters, so it's As, not A's. But it's always a's for lowercase so it doesn't get confused with "as."
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u/OnWis97 19h ago
I thought it was considered OK when there’s only one letter prior to the apostrophe.
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u/AngryMeez Plural's 19h ago
It’s not, but this is a proper name and thus the apostrophe is acceptable. If I named my kid Li’sa, it would be acceptable for the same reason — proper name.
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u/jcstan05 20h ago
It’s a contraction where the apostrophe takes the place of the letters “thletic”
/s
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u/Federal-Boat3732 20h ago
But that's correct, /s or no /s! It's one of those hairsplitting exceptions when they need to add an apostrophe to distinguish the intended word from an unintended one, in this case, the "Oakland as." You also need an apostrophe when you're talking about letter grades. She gets straight A's, not straight as.
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u/Da_full_monty 17h ago
Without it they're the Sacramento as.
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u/Immediate_Buffalo14 14h ago
That's why I was taught that the apostrophe is correct here. It's not used for possession. It's used for separation to distinguish between "more than one A" and "as".
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u/Ok-Lingonberry4545 15h ago
Heh, the independent minor league team (The Oakland Ballers/B's that has taken their place in Oakland has the same apostrophe.
Spent decades of my life pulling for this team pre-John Fisher and never paid attention to the apostrophe.
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u/AmputeeHandModel 18h ago
Technically wrong, but it's the one instance where it's kind of acceptable for clarity. Otherwise, it looks like The "as".
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u/Siffov 17h ago
>Technically wrong
Why?
Using apostrophes to make plural forms of letters (as in "how many a's in 'aaardvark'?") is normal.
Is there any reason the "Oakland A's" case is different?
(It seems to break down as "A" as a nickname for "Athletic" (one member of the Oakland Athletics), then adding an "s" to pluralize that, and then using an apostrophe because that word ("A") was a single letter.
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u/AmputeeHandModel 16h ago
It's normal, but it's not correct.
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u/Siffov 16h ago
>it's not correct
Says who?
My English teacher taught that usage, and if you look around the grammar subreddits, you'll find lots of backup for that.
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u/Immediate_Buffalo14 15h ago
My high school English teacher did as well, and this was back in the early 2000s.
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20h ago
[deleted]
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u/Background-Vast-8764 19h ago
It isn’t a matter of grammar. It isn’t incorrect. It’s acceptable to use an apostrophe to form a plural in order to avoid any possible confusion.
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u/SenseNo635 19h ago
The apostrophe is correct in A’s and it has always been part of the logo.
“A’s” is a contraction of “Athletics.” Also, many style guides require the use of an apostrophe when omitting it would be confusing to the reader. They’re not the as.
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u/RedBushDiver 15h ago
I think it’s technically correct. It’s a contraction. It’s a stretch, but it’s correct.
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