It’s that time of year when people will make a simple error when trying to make their last name plural on Christmas cards.
‘Tis the season for Christmas cards! If your post office is like mine, you should have sent them in October to make sure they arrive by Dec. 25. But if you are about to send yours out, double check the way in which you made your last name plural if you’re sending cards from the whole family.
This isn’t the first time I’ve issued this timely reminder. It won’t be the last, I’m sure. There are still people who insist on using an apostrophe when they refer to the whole family with a plural last name.
I’ll give you an example of what I mean. Let’s say Bob Smith decides to send Christmas cards on behalf of the family. He has a couple of options for the return address. He could address it as coming from “The Smiths.” Or he might use “The Smith Family” instead. Unfortunately, there’s a good chance he’ll grab hold of a needless apostrophe and sign it as coming from “The Smith’s.”
Repeat after me: You don’t make a last name plural with an apostrophe.
You don’t. Ever.
It’s really, really simple to do it correctly
For our example, all Bob Smith has to do is add an S to the end of his name. He’d correctly label cards coming from his household as from “the Smiths.”
Simple.
Actually, it couldn’t be simpler. And that’s true for most last names.
In fact, there are only five cases in which the little rule doesn’t apply. The five instances involve names that end in one of three letters or two letter combinations: S, X, Z, CH or SH. In those cases, you still don’t use an apostrophe.
Repeat again: You don’t make a last name plural with an apostrophe.
Instead, in these cases, instead of just an S, you add ES at the end of the name.
So Susan Jones would sign her family’s Christmas card “the Joneses.”
No apostrophe. Still simple.
Oh, and by the way, I wish you a Merry Christmas in advance!
