When we refer to musical beats being grouped in sets of twos and threes, is there an apostrophe that's required before the "s"? : two's and three's ??? How 'bout when you use the Arabic numeral? Is it beats in sets of 2's and 3's?

Thanks for providing the rule here,
WW

is there an apostrophe that's required before the "s"?

The purist would say no and that there is never any confusion between plural and possessive if you follow that rule. I want to know how many is there are in the preceding sentence?

Certainly it is not correct to put an apostrophe between the numeral and the "s" in your example. I constantly castigate my students for writing, "In the 1870's ... ... " rather than, "... the 1870s." It is a plural, not a possessive.

So, it would be: "Cross your ts and dot your is" instead of "Cross your t's and dot your i's"? Or: "Make sure you don't omit your 0s" instead of "Make sure you don't omit your 0's"? (To my way of reading the apostrophe seems to help rather than confuse without the apostrophe.)

Always,
WordWondering

What about number 3 on this list?

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_apost.html

I've always felt that an apostrophe clarifies the meaning of a sentence such as:
I got three A's on my report card; as opposed to:
I got three As on my report card.
And similarly with numbers when we are referring to the numbers per se.

Dear Slithy Toves,

And that rule for apostrophes for plurals of numbers and letters is the one that I thought I'd heard somewhere along the way.

So, where does that leave us with R's catigation of the students for 1800s v. 1800's? Are dates considered to be numbers different from numbers functioning simply as numbers? And then musical beats would definitely be groups in sets of 2's and 3's according to the site you provided. But what about when you spell 'em out? Does the apostrophe number rule still apply? Beats in sets of two's and three's?

Still wondering,
WW

The three citations at OneLook all document p's and q's as a plural noun with the apostrophes. This is from American Heritage:

p's and q's

PLURAL NOUN: 1. Socially correct behavior; manners. 2. The way one acts; conduct: was told to watch his p's and q's.

Here's a discussion of the possible origins of the term from Word Detective:

http://www.word-detective.com/052699.html#psandqs

The best practice is to omit apostrophes in plurals unless necessary to clarify meaning.

A's instead of As might be appropriate because "as" is a word, but I don't see how anyone could mistake "2s" for a word instead of a plural of 2. I have noticed that the apostrophe is rarer than it was, I think because of the increased ability to alter fonts and text size in lieu of punctuation to clarify meaning. So too, have periods disappeared in abbreviations.

Dear Wordwind,

I'd say:
1800's
2's and 3's
twos and threes.

Somehow they just look right. And the last are simply plurals that don't involve numerals or letters meant as letters. I'd never write, "I'm all at six's and seven's." (And where did that expression come from?)

Rhub: Please feel free to challenge.

slithy

I'd never write, "I'm all at six's and seven's."

You would instead write, "I'm all at sixs and sevens."? The sevens looks ok to me, but not sixs or do we add es and make it sixes? Now I don't know which looks right anymore! [very confused-e]

EDIT: Our wonderful "Spell Check" feature here says its "sixes and sevens". But do we believe ænigma?

Angel,

I'm feeling challenged here, but I'd say add -es rather than -s to any word ending in s, z, or x. So I'd definitely say sixes. The rule, as I recall, is to use -es when the new formation (plural or third-person form) adds a syllable (miss/misses; buzz/buzzes; six/sixes). I'll be happy to stand corrected, if anyone disagrees.

But do we believe ænigma?

Alway's.

I'll be happy to stand corrected, if anyone disagrees.

Look's to me like your setting correctly, slithy.

PS LOL dxb!!

OK, Slithy's given us a source at least. This is what I believe the rule to cover based on what we've posted here today:

If you're writing the number as a word, the plural doesn't require an apostrophe;
According to Slithy's source the numeral will require an apostrophe (and possibly this means that 1800's might be perfectly acceptable according to
Slithy's source)
And individual letters of the alphabet should have apostrophes for plurals, again according to Slithy's source.

So p's and q's and crossing t's and dotting your i's all have apostrophes along with beats in sets of 2's and 3's...but not twos and threes and sixes...

How's that?
WW

PS: I just realized that I've repeated exactly what Slithy's already written, but I'm just throwing this all out again on page 2 so's to keep things straight in m'min'. What's the rule about the period going inside of quotation marks? That doesn't count on m'min', does it? I mean, it shouldn't be "m'min.'," should it?[/white}