Hmm, I thnik I may have cracked it.

[ChaosTrulyReigns]

Erroneous apostrophes in plurals.

I think people sruggle with adding an 's' straight after a vowel (including 'y', excluding 'e').

I've been pondering on thus for a while, I understand it's not conclusive, but it's just a little theory I'm mooting.

Sofa's and beds.

Hero's and villains.

Fascia's and gutters.

Do's and Don'ts.

Pro's and cons.

Are all examples I've seen recently. Why shove an apostrophe in one plural but not the other? I think the lack of constant application of a grammar rule is to do with that tricky vowel.

What do you think?

I think with Do's and Dont's people often feel that do's without the apostrophes is dos, which isn't really a proper word and technically there is no plural of do. And it is confusing because it changes the pronunciation if you read it out of context. There are a few other similar examples which I can't recall right now.

I don't know why people struggle when there is a vowel, but I think you are onto something.

The other thing people struggle with is the adding of an 'e' for words that end in 'o' when it is a plural - potatoes and tomatoes. They think that therefore the singular is potatoe and tomatoe and it upsets me greatly.

Hero's is a good case in point. If they are unaware that the plural of hero is heroes thy may be reluctant to write heros as they would assume that would rhyme with Eros, so they add an apostrophe to keep the pronunciation the same.

That's a lot of thought put into my theory, thank you Hilly, for all that and especially for agreeing wholeheartedly with, and expanding on me.

The other one that always foxes people is monkey and monkeys v. daisy and daisies.

I don't really understand what on earth is the problem with apostrophes and plurals. I just don't get why so many seemingly literate and non-dyslexic people find it all so utterly beyond their grasp. Once it has been explained once it's just logical, surely?

I'll expand on you any day Chaos.

I can see we have much in common. I like you spend far too long pondering this kind of shit instead of doing something useful with my life.

TROLLIES!

And .

Obvis.

As a matter of fact (without wishing to be mean!) I don't think you can really claim to have cracked this all by yourself, as it is examined at some length in "Eats Shoots and Leaves" by Lynne Truss and I think she was building on previous work by grammarians herself. One of the examples she gave was of the word "bananas" and people adding an apostrophe to avoid it looking like it should be pronounced "bananass".

Also, I think some words of foreign origin may have had apostrophes in the plural in the past. I may be mixing this up a bit with Dutch, which I speak, and where this is still the case (eg: in Dutch, "Foto's" is the correct plural of Foto, which, surprise surprise, means photo). Not certain about that one, but it might apply to certain of your examples (fascia's?).

Anyway, you're certainly right. It is a documented phenomenon :).

cos they're idiots.

i don't do expansion.

i agree about the tricky rules, though.

but i don't see how it's any trickier than "it's a jeffing plural, so jeffing ' !!"
-yes or -ies , fine, but don't add an '

monkies i can live with
monkey's is just wrong.