Q. The February 2012 issue of National Geographic has a headline and subtitle that read, “What Dogs Tell Us: The ABC’s of DNA.” While I realize that National Geographic may have their own style guide, would Chicago style eliminate that apostrophe from ABC’s?
Q. Is it the three R’s or Rs? The NYT seems to use R’s—I thought I’d double check with you folks before I publish something.
Q. How would you pluralize “ram’s horn” when there are seven of them (i.e., more horns than one ram would naturally have)? Logically, it should be “rams’ horns,” but there is an argument that this should be treated in the same way as cowhides or sheepskins. In that case, wouldn’t it be “ram horns”? There are also votes in the office for “ram’s horns.”
Q. Our organization has a position called “director’s advisor.” There are about sixteen such advisors. I am editing a human resources paper on this position, and I have to figure out what the plural should be. There is an argument for making it “director’s advisors,” on the grounds that the job title itself is immutable, so if the text refers to several of them, an s should simply be placed at the end of the title. However, if there is one farmer and he has a field, it is a “farmer’s field.” The fields of several farmers would be referred to as “farmers’ fields.” Any assistance you can give in resolving this issue would be much appreciated!
Q. I am editing a textbook for English students in Brazil. One of the exercises presents a recipe for pumpkin pie. Students are told the pie filling contains 1 1/2 cup pumpkin, 1 1/2 cup sugar, and so on. I seem to remember that anything greater than 1 should be plural. Am I correct? In other words, should the recipe read 1 1/2 cups?
Q. What is the proper treatment for “disease” in “Center for Pancreatic and Hepatobiliary Disease”?
Q. Is it correct to use parenthesis to indicate the possibility of a noun as singular or plural? Example: Child(ren).
Q. Is this a plural or a singular: John Smith et al. (1990) argues (or argue)? And should a comma be placed after the year?
Q. The editors at our institution disagree about whether the singular point or plural points should be used in the following phrase: “0.4 percentage point(s).” Can you be the decider, as our commander-in-chief would say, on this one?
Q. Should the word head in this sentence have an s on it to agree with the multiple kids, or does this create a situation where each kid ends up with multiple heads? “The children put their hats on their heads.”