A Happy Medium: How to Make Your Last Name Plural This Christmas Season

A Happy Medium: How to Make Your Last Name Plural This Christmas Season

Don't make Kate angry with your Christmas card. Click the link to find out how to form the plural of your last name correctly.

"...I find a stack of Christmas cards and begin to flip through them--pausing to marvel at how big so-and-so's kids have gotten. And then I spot it: an apostrophe in a last name that isn't supposed to be possessive.

"I shudder, flipping past the unwarranted punctuation. But as I keep flipping, the apostrophes do, too--flipping me off, that is. They defile Christmas card after Christmas card, last name after last name with their presence. Gone is my Christmas cheer! All my glad tidings, replaced with fury."

By the way, the plural of Bates is Bateses. The possessive of Bateses is Bateses'. Example: "Are the Bateses at church today?" "Yes, the Bates family is here. I saw the Bateses' minivan in the parking lot."