Vatican unveils last of restored Raphael Rooms after 10-year cleaning
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Los Angeles Times
8 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
A Word, Please: When does a word need an apostrophe?
A recent headline in the New York Times caught my attention: 'City Beekeepers: The Dos and Don'ts of Maintaining an Urban Hive.' The idea of keeping beehives in Manhattan is interesting, of course, but if you're a word nerd like me, you're probably also intrigued by 'dos and don'ts.' On the one hand, it looks funny. 'Dos' looks like it should be pronounced as if it rhymes with 'boss,' especially because an early PC operating system called DOS did rhyme with 'boss.' But if you put an apostrophe in 'do's,' wouldn't you have to do the same for 'don't's,' giving it one apostrophe for the contraction then another to make it plural? Weird as 'dos and don'ts' looks, at least it's logical in a system that says don't use apostrophes to form plurals. Yet if that headline had appeared in any of thousands of other newspapers in the country, it would have been written differently: do's and don'ts. That's right, lots of news outlets would use an apostrophe to make a plural out of 'do' but they would not use an apostrophe to make 'don't' into a plural. Why? Because the Associated Press Stylebook, which most newspapers follow, says to use 'do's and don'ts.' Punctuation rules aren't made to be broken. But they're so flawed that sometimes you should break them anyway. That's most true when it comes to apostrophes to form plurals. The basic rule is: don't. One cat plus another cat isn't two cat's. It's two cats. No apostrophe. But it's not always so easy. Say, for example, you want to talk about a student's grades. Until recently, a lot of newspapers would have said, 'Johnny gets mostly Bs and Cs, along with a few A's.' The first two letters followed the no-apostrophe rule. But if you follow that rule for the letter A, you spell a word: 'as.' So some editing styles made an exception for letters like 'A' and 'I.' The biggest among them, AP, recently abandoned that system. Now, AP says, use apostrophes to form plurals of every letter: 'Johnny gets mostly B's and C's, along with a few A's.' It doesn't align with apostrophe rules, but at least it's less distracting. The change puts AP's rule for capital letters in line with their rule for lowercase letters, which has always been to use an apostrophe when forming a plural: 'There are two p's in Mississippi.' That apostrophe has always been the only way to make clear you're talking about the letter P and not the combo PS. Other times, instinct isn't the best guide for knowing when an apostrophe can form a plural. Often, plurals that 'look wrong' are right. 'We saw the emus at the zoo' could leave you wondering what an emus, presumably pronounced ee-muss, is. If you read 'there are two Enzos in my class,' it might take you a moment to work out that it's two people named Enzo. Ditto that for Aris and Lulus and Elis. My guess is that around 90% of people would write those plurals as emu's, Enzo's, Ari's, Lulu's and Eli's.' But that would be a mistake. Just because a possessive S suggests a weird pronunciation doesn't mean you can add an apostrophe. Instinct also leads people to put apostrophes in plural numbers: 'The band was popular in the 1990's.' That, too, is wrong. It's 1990s. Perhaps people who do that are thinking of the apostrophe that represents dropped numerals in 'the '90s.' But that's a correct use of an apostrophe, unlike one before a plural S. If you're making a word or number plural and you're tempted to add an apostrophe, add that to your list of don'ts, unless there's a special rule that says it belongs on your list of do's. June Casagrande is the author of 'The Joy of Syntax: A Simple Guide to All the Grammar You Know You Should Know.' She can be reached at JuneTCN@
New York Post
8 minutes ago
- New York Post
Solo traveler shocked by fellow plane passenger's response after she asked for a favor: ‘I've never been so caught off guard'
One of the trickiest things about solo traveling is figuring out what to do with your bag when you need to use the restroom at the airport. A female traveler recently faced this dilemma, so she asked a fellow airport-goer to watch her carry-on luggage while she relieved herself — but the woman shockingly refused. Being alone, stuck with your luggage in an airport can be tricky at times. ID_Anuphon – In a TikTok video — that has garnered over 100,000 views — with overlay text that reads, 'do ya'll watch someone's stuff at the airport yes or no[?]' Cara (@carasdigitaldiary_) shared the bizarre interaction. 'I feel like I don't want to talk too loud…I'm in the airport and I asked someone, 'Hey, can you watch my stuff, I'm going to run to the bathroom really quick. I have a Beis carry-on and my purse,' the confused traveler said in her video. 'I fully expected her to say yes and she goes, 'No, you should honestly take it with you.' Keep in mind the bathroom… is a few steps away from where we're sitting. I've never been so caught off guard…she fully said no….I'm not going to take all of my belongings a few steps away.' While Cara was genuinely confused that the traveler refused to watch her items — many of the commenters on the video actually sided with the no-sayer stranger. People in the video's comments were quick to defend the traveler who refused to watch the woman's bags. AP 'They literally announce over [the] loudspeaker not to do this every 5 minutes at every airport in the country,' pointed out one person. 'Girl that's the #1 thing you DON'T do at an airport,' chimed in someone else. 'I had 2 kids a stroller and 2 heavy packed full backpacks and didn't even think of asking someone to watch my stuff,' quipped another commenter. 'I was kind of shocked by just how much it really bothered people,' the content creator told in an interview. 'I always assumed if you ask a stranger to watch it, you're technically designating someone to just keep an eye on it, not be responsible for it.' Technically, these commenters are right. In U.S. airports, TSA often makes announcements warning passengers not to leave unattended luggage and not to accept any items from strangers. So the traveler who refused to watch the bag was just following the rules. And this isn't the first time this controversial topic has come up. A plane passenger who refused to watch a fellow traveler's bag while she and her son went to the airport bathroom took to Reddit to ask if she was in the wrong for doing this. 'I said I'm really not supposed to. She gives me the stink eye,' the user wrote. 'Not only is this a safety issue (probably not in this case, but in theory), but also I wouldn't have wanted to miss my boarding group.' 'I used to have young kids, and if mine had to go to the bathroom, I would always just schlep my bags to the bathroom. I wouldn't ask someone else to watch the bags,' the OP said, defending her decision. Expectedly, many of the Reddit comments defended this woman's decision not to watch the bag. 'TBH I'm more surprised that she trusted a stranger enough to watch her bags,' someone wrote. 'But yeah that's something airport employees mention every time you go through an airport. Don't do that. Not worth it!' 'The list of possible bad outcomes is too large. It's not a matter of being nice or not, it's just not the right thing to do,' another comment read.
Associated Press
2 hours ago
- Associated Press
Trump visits National Guard troops in DC, vows city will be 'maxed out in terms of beauty'
The Associated Press is an independent global news organization dedicated to factual reporting. Founded in 1846, AP today remains the most trusted source of fast, accurate, unbiased news in all formats and the essential provider of the technology and services vital to the news business. More than half the world's population sees AP journalism every day.
