Monday, December 14, 2015

Easy Holiday Grammar with Zombies

It’s holiday time and the Christmas/New Year’s cards are coming—some ripe with grammar errors, which mystified me since the grammar is straight forward. But then, a younger person (who will remain nameless) asked me a question about grammar on envelopes. I thought, “How do you not know this?” And I remembered that most young people rarely use the mail system. They text with their friends and pay bills online. So here’s a primer on envelopes. And I’ve enlisted my friends, the Zombies as helpers. Here you go.

You want to send a Christmas card to the Zombies, here are your options:

Zeno and Zenobia Zombie
1212 Dripping Blood Drive
Bloodthirsty, TN  37411

Or

The Zombies
1212 Dripping Blood Drive
Bloodthirsty, TN  37411

Or

The Zombie Family
1212 Dripping Blood Drive
Bloodthirsty, TN  37411

Under NO circumstance may you ever write:

Zombie’s (or Zombies’)
1212 Dripping Blood Drive
Bloodthirsty, TN  37411

Apostrophes are only used for contractions and to show ownership. Apostrophes are used correctly like this:

Next Saturday, Blood Suckers Anonymous will be holding a weekly meeting at the Zombies’ house. (Also note, it’s plural possessive because more than one person lives at the home of the Zombies.)

You can always double check whether you need an apostrophe by switching the sentence around. If you can use “of,” then you use an apostrophe.

Next Saturday, Blood Suckers Anonymous will be holding a weekly meeting at the house of the Zombies. 

Now go enjoy your holidays grammar-error free!

1 comment:

  1. Right. A professor once pointed out in class that he visited a home that had something like "The Smith's" on the front. He said that implied the home belonged to only one Smith.

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