It's Just an Apostrophe
by Keith A. Howe
Some of you really enjoy nitpicky grammar and style issues. If you do, read on to learn about a tough issue we recently handled. We enjoyed discussing it, and we thought some of you would enjoy it as well.
We recently released a new online booklet called A Kids Guide to Japan. Our first impulse was to include an apostrophe in the title (Kid's Guide vs Kids Guide), but we ultimately left it out.
There are dozens of guidebooks for kids, and you'll find the apostrophes all over the place: A Kid's Guide to Boston, Kids' Travel Guide, and A Smart Kids Guide to Terrific Tornadoes (to name a few). So who's right? Unfortunately, the issue is fuzzy, and it's more a matter of style than rules.
If you have a citizens group, it is a group for citizens, not one owned by them. Similarly, a tailors guild is not possessed by the tailors who join the guild. In these cases, "citizens" and "tailors" are actually nouns that modify other nouns. The Associated Press Stylebook calls them "descriptive phrases," while The Chicago Manual of Style refers to them as "attributive forms." The case with our book title seemed like a descriptive phrase/attributive form: the guide was designed for kids, not owned by them.
What do you think? Leave your comments below.
Language Arts
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