X's and O's or Xs and Os?

Whoa.

It's a stylebook. It's not a holy document. Even among papers that adhere to AP style (like mine), there are rulings that get bucked.

The style on plurals for single letters is not where I'd make my stand. AP's ruling, and the reasons behind it that have been detailed on this thread, makes sense to me. On others, such as the one recently handed down that prohibits "loan" as a verb, I'm inclined to turn away from blind devotion to the almighty AP.

 

I'm not choosing this battle to make a stand. A point? Yes. And I certainly don't agree with everything in the stylebook, and I don't think AP is almighty.

But if we're going to look things up in the stylebook, then say, 'Nope, I don't agree. I'm doing it my way,' then what point is there in even having a style book?

Wait a minute, I think I'm starting to come around to this logic, and I think I like it. From now on, I'm going to apply it to the dictionary. No longer will I be spelling the word neighbor with a 'g' because it makes no sense to me.

 

Now there's a nice overreaction to what I said. Perhaps I should point out that I was the one to cite the stylebook in the first place.

First, about making a stand: I was talking about NOT bucking AP on this point.

Second, about bucking AP: Oh, never mind.

 

It's definitely X's and O's. You need apostrophes after single letters because of words such as "is" and "as." It's always been like that in the stylebook and at all of my newspaper stops. There's no debate.

 

^^^
Amen

 

I don't like the apostrophe in Xs or Os. It gives a possessive quality that doesn't exist to something that you're simply trying to make plural.

Much like "A's" in Oakland A's. I don't like whoever stuck that apostrophe in there for no reason.

 

I think it's been covered already, but A's is a contraction for Athletics. The apostrophe replaces the "thletic" in that case.

 

That makes sense. I'll shut up.

 

What a myopic stance.
Point is, what if you styles don't dictate apostrophe usage on the pluralization of single letters?
I suppose that still makes you right.

 

And, "A's" isn't a contraction for anything.



"A's" is a nickname, and refers to the original bold, Gothic script "A" that was at the front of Athletics' jersey. When the word "Athletics" didn't fit in headlines in Philadelphia, headline writers used "A's" --- the plural of, or many "A."

 

Not arguing your point because I'm not a big baseball guy, but was the team originially the Athletics or just the A's? If it was the Athletics, then how do you know that A's is plural for "many A's" and not a contraction? The contraction thing makes sense.

 

'Dodgers.