Among the joys of the holiday season are Christmas greeting cards in the mailbox (at the end of the driveway — not an email inbox), on hard copy paper that can be posted on the refrigerator (not a fleeting Facebook post).
Social media have somewhat diminished the anticipation of holiday snail mail since we now bump into each other online for brief updates on the goings-on in each other’s lives.
But Christmas cards tell us these special people in our lives care enough to put our address on an envelope and sign their names to their greetings.
As grateful as I am for these precious greetings, I’d like to gently offer a suggestion for greeting card signatures.
Please don’t put an apostrophe before the S in your family’s name (Merry Christmas from the Sorensons) — unless of course, you intend to make it a possessive S (… from the Sorensons’ house with the apostrophe after the S).
If your name ends with a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h (see h exceptions below), i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, t, u, v, w, y — simply add an S at the end of your name to make it plural. No apostrophe is needed.
If your name ends with s, x, z, ch or sh, add an ES at the end to make the signature plural. No apostrophe is needed.
Emphatic anti-apostrophe blogger Kate Brennan offers the following S FAQs:
Q: What if my last name ends in a Y?
A: Add an S. Do not add -IES or an apostrophe. Merry Christmas from the Murphys.
Q: What if my last name already ends in an S?
A: Add -ES. Do not add an apostrophe. Season’s greetings from the Simmonses.
Q: What if the end of my last name normally functions as an irregular noun?
A: It is not irregular when it is part of a last name. Happy holidays from the Hoffmans (not Hoffmen). Warm wishes from the Wolfs (not Wolves).
Q: What would adding an apostrophe do?
A: It would offend the wordos of the world make your last name possessive.
Q: Is there ever a reason to add an apostrophe?
A: Only if you want to make your last name possessive.
Q: Why do people add apostrophes?
A: I have no idea.
“If your goal is to make your last name possessive, then, by all means, use an apostrophe,” Brannen writes in her blog. “If your goal is simply pluralization, however, forgo the apostrophe. In the spirit of the season, I beg you.”
Only a wordo like me would care enough to share this information, and I do so at risk of being removed from people’s Christmas card lists.
Please, dear readers, don’t not send me a card because of an ill-placed apostrophe.
Unlike some wordos I know, an accidental apostrophe in my mailbox takes nothing away from the spirit of the message or the happy, smiling faces in the photographs.
Merry Christmas, everyone, whether you’re a plural or possessive card signer.