Happy Curmudgeons Day—or Curmudgeon’s, or Curmudgeons’?

By Ellen Jovin

Welcome back, please do come in, let’s start with a quiz. Your task is to insert an apostrophe where appropriate in the following three real-life publication titles:

• Runners World
• Farmers Almanac
• Publishers Weekly

I’ll be back in three paragraphs with the answers. Don’t cheat.

In the meantime, happy Curmudgeons Day! This is a perfect opportunity to crankily discuss the fact that unless you have a photographic memory, it is challenging to remember where and even if to place apostrophes in constructions like these. If people thought about the holiday name, which most people don’t, some would surely want to use the plural possessive “curmudgeons’.” Others might prefer to use the singular possessive “curmudgeon’s,” but probably not many, in part because of the abundance of curmudgeons.

Fortunately, since today is also Freethinkers Day, we can accommodate diverse viewpoints here.

Now it is time for the quiz answers: Runner’s World, Farmers’ Almanac, and Publishers Weekly. How did you do? The first one includes a singular possessive, the second contains a plural possessive, and the third contains no possessive. If I hadn’t written the quiz myself, I would probably have gotten two out of three wrong, especially since there is a better-known farmers’ publication called Old Farmer’s Almanac where the apostrophe choice went a different way.

In constructions such as Publishers Weekly, “publishers” can be described as an attributive noun, which is a noun acting adjectivally before another noun. That term was not part of my childhood. In the phrase “book cart,” I would back in the day have classified “book” as an adjective, and I would have classified “publishers” as needing an apostrophe. But it is a real and common thing to have attributive nouns, singular or plural, in front of other nouns in English, and as an adult, I am at peace with it.

I regularly see all three options: singular possessive, plural possessive, and attributive noun. If you love consistency, I hope your job isn’t reporting on farmer’s/farmers’/farmers markets.

In Runner’s World, the possessive is singular even though there are a whole lot of runners running around out there. I see that publication name and picture an archetypal fit runner. If they made it Runners’ World or Runners World, it is possible that I, an apostrophe-sensitive person, would picture more runners. Either way, I know the magazine is about running.

Every year I check holiday names. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are reliably singular, though given the volume of mothers and fathers out there and my less than perfect apostrophe memory, I keep looking them up anyway. I check locks, I check stoves, I check apostrophes. I’ve checked New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, April Fools’ Day, and Presidents’ Day many times.

If you are a writer in the U.S., you may have consulted Writer’s Digest for advice while simultaneously belonging to the National Writers Union, the Authors Guild, the Horror Writers Association, or some other apostrophe-free organization. People who belong to the Writers Guild of America (also no apostrophe) may have professional counterparts across the Atlantic who belong to the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, where the authorities opted for a plural possessive. Let’s check back in 10 years and see if that apostrophe’s still there.

Sometimes organizations do drop them. Sometimes there is flip-flopping. This can cause outrage and the writing of many passionate emails. I have set up my grammar advice stand next to a number of Kilwins chocolate and ice cream shops around the country. Sometimes their signs and product packaging have had an apostrophe (Kilwin’s) and sometimes they haven’t. I have successfully operated my grammar stand amid apostrophe uncertainty.

Much time has gone into decisions like these across decades. At times people have surely become angry and voices have been raised. In fact, it’s highly likely that someone on the Upper West Side is arguing about this subject this very minute.

By the way, there’s no apostrophe in the National Basketball Players Association, which is for current NBA players, but if you’re playing in the NHL, you get an apostrophe in your National Hockey League Players’ Association.

Occasionally there is certainty. The Children’s Literature Association cannot be the Childrens’ Literature Association or the Childrens Literature Association. And it definitely cannot be the Children Literature Association. Unless you habitually misplace apostrophes in “children’s,” you cannot go wrong here.

While writing this article, I checked up on Reader’s Digest. It’s still hanging on to the same singular apostrophe it had in the 1970s when my little sister and I used to read through stacks of Reader’s Digest issues at our grandparents’ house in Los Angeles. I see that apostrophe and I remember the way the Southern California light came in the room softened by trees as I read. I loved my grandparents so much. It’s nice to see that apostrophe again.

Ellen Jovin is the author of the national bestseller Rebel with a Clause and the subject of a grammar docu-comedy by Brandt Johnson, also called Rebel with a Clause, currently playing at theaters around the country.

You’ll find a complete collection of her columns for the WSR — HERE.

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