September 13, 2011

20s, 20′s, or ’20s?

Numbers and apostrophes confuse many business writers. Here’s a sentence that correctly omits an apostrophe:

The study, led by Northwestern University researchers, followed a large group of men in their 20s.

It’s incorrect to add an apostrophe + -s to make a number plural (e.g., “in their 20’s”).

However, you do add an apostrophe before the number when you name a decade but leave out the century:

Our company was founded back in the ’20s.

In this case, the apostrophe takes the place of the missing numbers you’d type in “the 1920s.”

Remember that decades with apostrophes are just like the contractions can’t for cannot or isn’t for is not.

The apostrophe in “founded in the ’20s” stands for missing numbers, just as apostrophes in contractions stand for missing letters.

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Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar includes two lessons on punctuation marks, including the apostrophe.

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