60's, 70's, 80's, etc

[Spellmaster]

Not a question, just a point to help people avoid mistakes and to stop getting annoyed about be correcting them. If you are writing 'in the 60's' then you DON'T NEED an apostrophe before the s - in fact, it should come before the 6 to denote the missing century, ie '60s. You only need an apostrophe before the s if you are writing about something that belonged to the '60s, eg '60's programmes (NOT, note, 'programs', we're not the 51st state yet). Otherwise, trust me, leave the poor overused, misused apostrophe alone.

[Quizmonster]

Actually, "60's programmes" would refer to the programmes of the year 1960 and no other year. You really should have written: "60s' programmes" - with the apostrophe after the 's' - since that is how one should refer to programmes of that entire decade.

The word 'petard' somehow comes to mind!

[j2buttonsw]

Whatever

[Drafty]

The word Pettifogging springs to my mind. Jeees....

[andy hughes]

Frankly spellmaster, your attitude is becoming rather tiresome. It's one thing to react to people's errors - hitting a 'b' instead of an 'm' is a mistake anyone can make, and 99% of AB users make typos, and the rest of us let them go for what they are - simpe human errors. Your proactive lecturing on the finer points of grammar is as you correctly point out, not a Question, so why did you post it in the first place. Try using the Site for its purpose - the asking and answering of questions, and a little debate and exchange of ideas and humour, and save your po-faced superior attitude for people who may accept it a little better.

[ravenhair]

Spellmaster, your point would have had a little more credibility if it had been correct. 60's programmes? Er, no, that's not the correct use of the possessive. I could go into some more syntactic detail but I don't think you'd understand.

[darth vader]

Dear Spellmaster welcome to the Pedantics Anonymous club - where do i send the badge? D'a'r't'h

[smorodina]

English is a language with a ludicrous spelling system that should have been reformed years ago. What a waste of life to spend it learning all the exceptions and different ways of pronouncing things like the 'ough' grouping. It's just reactionary elitists that have kept it so, in order, one can only speculate, to feel superior and laugh at the attempts of others to cope. The problem with American spelling is that they didn't go nearly far enough in reforming it. Take a leaf out of many other European languages where the written language at least gives you a fighting chance of pronouncing it. We've trashed a crazy monetary system, are half way through a painfully laborious process with our measurements, let's sort out the spelling too.

[andjac]

potato's tomatoes tomaatos potatoes lets call the whole thing off !!!!?

[Snarfyguy]

The thing here, as spellmaster himself alluded to, is that the apostrophe in "60's" is used to denote not possession, but an ellipsis. We're using the shortened "60's" as opposed to the longer "sixties." That's why we don't write "a sixties' song" but we do write "a 60's song." Hence "MP3's," etc. I don't recall the authority for this, but you insist, I'm bored enough to drag it out.

[Quizmonster]

Snarf, the point is, as you say, that "60s" stands for the word-form "sixties". (Spellmaster is at least right in his contention that that doesn't require an apostrophe before the "s".) However, since one wouldn't dream of writing "sixtie's" - with an apostrophe before the "s" in the word-form - why on earth would one write "60's" - with an apostrophe before the "s" in the number-form - to mean 'belonging to the decade 1960 -1969 inclusive"?

"60's music" means music form 1960 and "60s' music" means music from 1960-69, just as "the dog's paws" refers to the paws of one dog and "the dogs' paws" refers to the paws of more than one dog.

[sft42]

TEE HEE......good one spelly, you always knew how to kick up a stink.....and where have you been hiding eh? As for you point what was it in reation to? or have you just finally gone over the edge then? Try prozac if it's all getting to much for you mate............BTW has anyone seen good ol' fakey about?

[Snarfyguy]

Quizmonster: Multiple possessive point taken. I rebut (in a friendly way; I'm not trying to have an argument) by answering your question "Why on earth..." as follows: simply because "60's" stands for an ellipsis of "sixties." I believe this issue arises because of a confusion between an apostrophe denoting a possesive and one denoting an ellipsis. It seems that, operating under your contention, we'd write "sixties' music," which we do not. I would suppose then that to refer to music of the year 1960 only, we would write "60 music." Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, I mean fingers...

[Nellie2]

My goodness! All this over a tiny little itty bitty ditty looking thing!

[Spellmaster]

When you seen vans (or should that be van's?) advertising 'ham's' for sale, or signs saying 'Leed's United' as someone else referred to on here, then YES, there is a need for better grammar. It is NOT unimportant, it governs the way we communicate and if people can't communicate properly and effectively then it can lead to misunderstandings, mistakes through different people believing different things, failed job applications, etc. Oh and Ravenhair - I know you're an editor and think you know everything about grammar, as you continually remind us, but so am I and on this point you are wrong.

[WaldoMcFroog]

"I know you're an editor and think you know everything about grammar, as you continually remind us, but so am I and on this point you are wrong," quoth ye olde Spellma'ster.

-

How strange! Last time you insisted on bandying your very interesting knowledge of apostrophes about, you were a recruitment constultant.

[Snarfyguy]

Well, I'm glad that's settled. Cheers!

[Faira1]

Manufactured in the 1970s and sold in JCPenney stores in the U.S., Letterman oil paintings are a collection of works created to look like original oil paintings. Although there is no single Letterman artist, the paintings themselves are collectible by fans for their place in mid-century Americana. Featuring subjects ranging from cats to landscapes to geometric patterns and signed simply Letterman, these paintings were designed to hang in any average home.