It seems the writers and editors at The New York Times have given up on correctness. Two days ago, Adam Bryant -- along with his charlatan editors --  committed grievous grammatical boobery. Mr. Bryant's article displays a flagrant disregard for detail, meaning, and the apostrophe. The Society does not approve. 

This disturbing apostrophe abuse would be a semi-tolerable mistake if it represented a genuine misunderstanding of how to pluralize acronyms. But it's worse than that -- and not even close to tolerable. Bryant besprinkles apostrophes willy-nilly throughout the entire article, perhaps relying on luck to stumble upon the right meaning. And stumble Bryant does -- on the first page of the article, there are only two correct usages, one of which is in the title of his already-published book. 

The other one is the only usage to actually mean what it should -- the C.E.O.s own something: a job. 

Unfortunately, the 6 other apostrophe appearances (on the first page) point to Bryant & Co. being total grammatical boobs. Take a look: 

Simply being a business fat cat doesn't entitle the C.E.O. to own "are supposed to project confidence..." and "offered myriad lessons and insight..." 

See all the apostrophe booberies committed by Bryant here. 

This display of boobery highlights more than Bryant's indifference and ignorance: it underlines an epidemic plaguing our acronyms and numericals. That is, Bryant is not the only boob. In fact, this type of error is perhaps more common than any other. 

I love the 80's? This is wrong in two senses. First, the apostrophe does not denote plural, so its usage is incorrect. Second, the possession doesn't even work. One would have to say I love the 80s' sensibilities or the 80s' tablecloths: the 80s are plural already and possess something together.  We also often see advertisements for DJ's who rock the house, DVD's at a huge discount, and the socioeconomic upheavals of the 1800's. We should rather hear of a DJ's beats, a DVD's quality, and 1851's particular fondness for the railroad. 

The apostrophe primarily represents possession (secondarily omission). It does not mark plurals. 

To learn more about apostrophes, visit our Education Page. 

Thanks to SAGB member Dan Dunning for submitting Bryant's article.