Noun plurals and apostrophes

[Brian G Turner]

Something that's bugging me:

I have two main factions. One includes the Emperors Guard.

The other includes the state religion and its soldiers, the Cardinals Men.

There's a pressure to use apostrophes for these factions, but I'm trying to resist that because ... I think it makes the names look ugly, especially when repeatedly referenced.

There is only one emperor ruling at a time, but there have been many emperors. The Emperors Guard were set up to protect all and any emperors.

However, so far as I under it, normally it would be expected to use an apostrophe in this noun, to infer either the singular or plural, ie:

the Emperor's Guard
the Emperors' Guard

Equally, there is no single cardinal. In fact, there are none at the moment - but there was once many. Hence technically I think I am supposed to write:

the Cardinals' Men.

I feel like I'm being a little ignorant trying to avoid apostrophe use for these nouns, but I can't help but feel that the apostrophes make these names look ugly. Especially once repeated a couple of times on the page.

Am I likely to need to use apostrophes, or is there a chance I can convincingly avoid using them?

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

How about the Imperial Guard for the first group? Avoids the problem.

I'm trying to think of a similar term for the second group, but I guess it depends on what their function really is in your story. Holy Soldiers? The Knights of the Cross? Something like that, anyway.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Since I was the one who brought it up... The guard belongs to the Emperor, it's there for his purposes, right? Similarly the Cardinal's troop belong to him? That being the case, I can't see that there is anyway around a possessive apostrophe without it looking grammatically incorrect. I don't think they busy a page, unless you've got a couple on each line. But, the bottom line, I think it should be there.

Given the way you've described it, both troops for the Emperor only safeguard one person at any stage, so I think Emperor's, but the cardinals' may safeguard more than one, so I think Cardinals'. But without it, I twitched, and if I notice a posessive should be there with my '-blindness then I can't see others not.

An eg I can think of is the King's Own. I couldn't imagine it without an apostrophe.

 

[HareBrain]

It should certainly be Emperor's -- while there might have been many emperors, there would only have been one at a time, so they could only have guarded one.

Same with Cardinal's, I'd have thought. A cardinal would have his own personal guard, otherwise it would be called the Church Guard or something. (And if they did "belong" to more than one cardinal, why not whoever ranked above the cardinals too, the equivalent of the pope?)

And I'd definitely use the apostrophes, ugliness or no.

(Edit: in the old play-by-mail game Fleur de Lys, it's always referred to as Cardinal's Guard. That might be a different situation, though.)

 

[Brian G Turner]

How about the Imperial Guard for the first group? Avoids the problem.

I know, but the name has stuck and doesn't want to be changed.

Since I was the one who brought it up

It's okay, I've known this is an issue I need to look at for a long time. Might have been raised in one of my earliest critiques.

I looked at "Kings Men" as an example, and it's always "King's Men".

And I'd definitely use the apostrophes, ugliness or no.

I'm beginning to think I don't have a choice.

 

[Mouse]

I think it looks uglier without the apostrophes.

 

[Ursa major]

I think Victoria has the answer for the Emperors/Emperor's/Emporers' Guard: call them the Imperial Guard.


The cardinals are a different matter; a far as I can tell, they only have, say, a see, if they're also a bishop; otherwise, their role is not specific to an area. However, they do all(at least on Earth, in the Catholic Church) belong to one thing, the College of Cardinals. To avoid the same problem as before, calling their guard the Colleges/College's Guard is a no-no.

But they could be the Collegiate Guard.


(By the way, are they called cardinals because they're directly appointed...? )

 

[Vertigo]

I think you are stuck with it unless you change the name as suggested.

In the UK, for example, we have the Queen's Own Highlanders and the Queen's Own Hussars both of which should be written with the apostrophe, though admittedly it is frequently omitted.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I don't buy the premise that apostrophes are ugly.

As Mouse says, it's definitely uglier without the apostrophes because they belong there. I would keep noticing and get more and more upset every time I saw another one without. I wouldn't notice at all if it had them, because they are correct.

 

[Ursa major]

Speaking of ugliness and apostrophes...

I hear that the grosser apostrophes are the ones that shouldn't be there.

 

[Erin99]

Just to add my 2p...

If you put two words together without the apostrophe, you're leaving out the connection between them - they become just two random words side-by-side. Or a guard made out of Emperors.

Because the guard belongs to the Emperor (and yes, only one Emperor exists at a time, so it would be singular), the apostrophe is needed. There's very few times you can safely leave off the apostrophe - usually words that have become common in their own right. Off the top of my noggin I can think of "city wall" as an example. You could write "city's wall", which would be correct since the wall belongs to the city, but it's kinda clunky so we just leave off the apostrophe. Oh! And the same with "tree trunk". There we go, two examples!


We have a pub here in Dundee called the Boars Head, and it drives me nuts! The head BELONGS to the boar, you pedant-hating ungrammarians! Oh, and we also have a pub called the Queen's Head, but on one side the apostrophe's dropped off, which bugs me no end!

 

[Erin99]

Oh, just to add something I forgot - years ago when I wrote the first version of my novel and paid JJ to look it over, he highlighted my use of "High Lords and High Ladys". I told him I thought -ies looked horrid in that context, so I'd preferred -ys for "Ladies", and he said that was not a problem.

However, I've now scrapped the names altogether (though not because of that). Not sure if you could get away with that or not, though, since the guard does belong to the emperor...

 

[prizzley]

But surely you don't have to use the full term each time? Once established in the reader's mind, you can get away with 'the Guard' or 'the Men' -you'll need to replace 'Men' with something more distinctive though.

 

[Ursa major]

...you'll need to replace 'Men' with something more distinctive though.

'Stormtroopers', perhaps?

 

[TheDustyZebra]

We have a pub here in Dundee called the Boars Head, and it drives me nuts! The head BELONGS to the boar, you pedant-hating ungrammarians! Oh, and we also have a pub called the Queen's Head, but on one side the apostrophe's dropped off, which bugs me no end!

We have the opposite problem in America -- everybody likes to have an apostrophe when they don't need one! (In that case, I would have to agree that apostrophes are ugly.) Businesses advertise "phone's" or "chair's" for sale. People whose name is Williams have a sign or a doormat at their house that says "The William's". It's an epidemic.

 

[Ursa major]

Those are the famous (over here) grocer's apostrophes (or, rather, grocers apostrophe's), a serendipitous name given how gross they are.


In my experience (Telecoms design), it's also common with TLAs (three letter abbreviations), where the aggregation of capital letters seems to force people to add the apostrophe (e.g. TLA's). As most of the people I've seen writing, for example, TLA's when they mean TLAs, I can only assume there's some sort of eveil, spawn-of-the-devil meme involved.

 

[HareBrain]

Acshully, Ursa, until not that long ago it was deemed correct to use an apostrophe in the plural of an acronym.

 

[Ursa major]

Why? It's illogical**. And wrong. And the spawn of the dev... *cough*


If it's because letter are missing - as in Three Letter Abbreviation - I can see that someone might - after some sort of brainstorm or an all-night alcoholic binge - ignore the capital letters (which tell everyone it's an abbreviation) and come up with an abomination such as T'L'A' on which one could add an s for the plural: T'L'A's.

But even that doesn't explain why the S after the TLA might be capitalised, as it often was: TLA'S.

*shakes head*


EDIT: I now see that it came from the bad old days when people put periods between the letters of a TLA. Which again isn't really needed (unless, perhaps one is using an OLA: a One Letter Abbreviation.

Darp! And no I'm wondering about Three Letter Abbreviations versus Three-Letter Abbreviations.

* Goes off to have a short breakdown.... *



** - How is one supposed to differentiate between the plural and the possessive? Done properly, though, one can have the full line up: TLA, TLAs, TLA's and TLAs'.

 

[Gumboot]

I don't think you actually need the apostrophe. It depends. Take the first;

You have three choice, all are legitimate, but all imply different things;

"Emperor's Guard"
The Guard belongs to the current Emperor

"Emperors' Guard"
The Guard belongs to multiple Emperors. This could mean you have multiple Emperors ruling at once, guarded by the same unit, or it could symbolically represent the Guard's dedication to the office of Emperor over any individual - they belong to every Emperor that ever was and ever will be, as it were.

"Emperors Guard"
This can be legitimate. It indicates that the Guard don't belong to the Emperor. That can be an important constitutional distinction, particularly in a state that is trying hard to pretend their Emperor is a figure heard for some other form of government (such as Rome).

In western naming tradition, military units tend not to be named after a particular person or political office unless they "belong" to that person or office, so you will always see a possessive used, but this rule need not apply to a fictional civilisation, which can have its own traditions.

 

[Hex]

For me, the issue is that to get away with Emperors Guard you need to have a section explaining how your Emperors Guard is a bit strangely named because though you'd think they were the Emperor's Guard, or the Guard of the Emperor (whether or not they strictly belonged to him), in fact they're not, but a separately named group.

And if it's not possessive, then why is there an s?

Anyway, to get to my point (eventually): it looks wrong, even if there are ways to argue that it's not.