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Subject:Re: Blasted Apostrophes (Was Years v. Years') From:"Parks, Beverly" <ParksB -at- EMH1 -dot- HQISEC -dot- ARMY -dot- MIL> Date:Thu, 27 Feb 1997 07:33:39 -0700
Virginia Hayden wrote:
>We have an ongoing debate here as to whether a software manual should be
>titled Users Guide or User's Guide. What's the consensus out there?
=======
I prefer to drop the apostrophe in this case. The reference guide I like
to use (The New York Public Library Writer's Guide to Style and Usage)
says the following:
"Although an apostrophe is not incorrect in terms like the following,
increasingly it is omitted when the sense of the term is descriptive
rather than possessive--that is, when *for* is meant rather than *of*."
It gives the following examples:
teachers college
boys clubs
Merchants Bank
officers club
users manual
I think omitting it is a much simpler solution than worrying about
whether is should be users' or user's.
It did not escape me that the very reference I cited uses the apostrophe
in its own title: Writer's Guide.
>Bev Parks
>parksb -at- emh1 -dot- hqisec -dot- army -dot- mil
>
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