As a blogger, I spend a few hours everyday reading other blogs and various forms of amateur content around the web. It’s one way to stay on top of what’s hot, while also allowing me to scope out potential talent for my own site. In addition, it gives me a way to monitor grammar. After reading the 20th blog post of the day, you tend to start to notice some common mistakes being made.
The one mistake we are going to home in on in today’s Grammar 101 posting is the improper listing of decades in numerical format. Referring to the culture or the history of a particular decade is a common feature among blog content creation. Among the most popular blog subjects – homemaking, fashion, pop culture, finance – years are mentioned frequently and thus this is an incredibly important aspect of online grammar that must be addressed.
Simply put, you do not include an apostrophe when referring to a specific decade. For example: “The company Instructure has been developing LMS classroom strategies since the early 2000’s.” is incorrect. In this case an apostrophe would denote possession, despite the decade not being in possession of anything within the sentence. Yet in nearly 50% of the blog postings I read where a specific decade is listed, an apostrophe has been included.
To prevent yourself from making this seemingly common mistake, simply stop and remind yourself the rules regarding apostrophes. A decade is a thing and thus a noun. Nouns with apostrophes are always either in possession or in action. If you are merely referring to the aspects of a particular decade, then you only have to add the “s” to denote plurality.
For those of you thinking about contractions, keep in mind that a decade’s status as a plural subject prevents a decade from ever sitting in front of “is” or “was.” Thus, such a contraction-based reason for writing “2000’s” would never exist in the first place.
So let’s recap: There is virtually no situation where an apostrophe should be included when referring to a decade. It is simply a matter of plurality, and as such needs only an “s” to make sense. Anything more than that is violating basic laws of the English language.
The preceding was a guest post by Nancy E. and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Michael Kwan or Beyond the Rhetoric.
Incorrect usage of the apostrophe when denoting plural is something I notice quite often too. Also, many seem to forget to add ‘es’ to pluralize words ending with an ‘s’. Like for likeness, the plural should be likenesses but many write likeness’s instead.
-Jean
I do not like the rules for apostrophes. If there are more than one of something when you are writing about something I was taught to put the apostrophe and it makes a lot of sense to me. It also would make a lot of Grammar a lot easier, but then again I have a bunch of ideas that would make the English language easier.
We all know where my opinion is going to get us in the world at large, so I just keep hoping.
Sorry, but I have no idea why you would have been taught to put an apostrophe there. Quite frankly it makes no sense whatsoever. The apostrophe in English denotes either possession or a contraction.
Sorry it doesn’t make any sense to you, but it does to me. Possession or not there are too many rules for English grammar that are way too confusing. That is why it is such a hard language to learn. I had no trouble learning German or the limited Japanese that I know.
The more rules you have, the harder it is to get the masses to follow it all the time.
Seeing the apostrophes on years and decades is really annoying to me. A massive pet peeve. I regularly correct my teachers for it.
However, I do not agree that there is “virtually no situation where an apostrophe should be included” with regards to decades. How about “80’s music” (which would be fully written out as “1980’s music”). In this case the decade of the 1980s are in possession of music.
Not the best example, I know, but there are many cases in which a decade can be considered in possession of something.
Not to mention, strictly speaking we really should put an apostrophe BEFORE the shortened version of the decade, although it is frequently left out. So 1980s would become ’80s, rather than 80s.
Being in Education, albeit the technology side I see the classroom a lot and see the students a lot. I have watched many students speak up to point out some grammar error that they have learned in English during a Science class or another subject.
Correcting teachers is just a way to make yourself look better and disrespectful to the teacher. If it is an English teacher then a private discussion about how you feel would be appropriate because that is what they teach.
If you are in a class you are there to learn a subject. Concentrating on that subject and not on a simple apostrophe is what will help pass the class.
Great point I never even paid attention to that one. I try to stray away from using contractions when I can.