<p>Seems like this community ought to do things like use apostrophes in "its" and "it's" correctly, and ought to know that since the term is Ivy League, we refer to them singularly as an Ivy, or in the plural as Ivies. There's no need for upper case letters.</p>
<p>Thank you in advance from the bottom of my particular and language-sensitive heart.</p>
<p>Please, no more ivy’s when you mean someone is applying to more than one Ivy League school. Correct usage: my kid is applying to three ivies, not my kid is applying to three ivy’s. Thank you, Alumother</p>
<p>:) Like button. On a somewhat related (but also unrelated) note… my son and I were watching a baseball game the other day, and we were wondering why the Oakland Athletics are referred to everywhere (including on their caps) as the A’s (with the apostrophe). It irked us. Are we missing something, other than otherwise, they would be the As? !!</p>
<p>^^^^^ “Isn’t” is a contraction for “is not.” The apostrophe indicates something’s missing. In the case of “isn’t” it’s the “o”; in the case of the Athletics, it’s the “thletic.”</p>
<p>Sorry. :o</p>
<p>So the apostrophe is used like a contraction to substitute for missing letters in “A’s”? But I thought a contraction was supposed to, by its definition, combine two separate words into one. Do other sports teams do this? </p>
<p>It read to us like the “belonging to” usage of an apostrophe (which would, of course, be terribly wrong)!</p>
<p>Learn something new everyday!</p>
<p>Makes no difference in 10 years. The apostrophe will have disappeared because it isn’t used in text messaging, and everyone knows what you mean. And sometimes the cAp lOCk is stuCk.</p>
<p>Get over it. ;)</p>
<p>I’d go with As, because in this case the A is not a contraction.</p>
<p>I will be happy when the parents of CC learn how to use lay and lie. :D</p>
<p>I thought this was a helpful explanation from a web site offering writing tips:</p>
<p>"What the Chicago Manual of Style actually says is
Capital letters do not normally require an apostrophe in the plural.</p>
<p>One could write a sentence like this without confusing a reader:
You need to improve the formation of your Ts and Zs.</p>
<p>But one might be tempted to reach for the apostrophes with a sentence like this:
You need to improve the formation of your Ss, Is, and Us."</p>
<p>I think in the case of the baseball team, there is a use for apostrophes for capital letters and numbers in the case where if there is no apostrophe, the meaning is unclear:</p>
<p>Yes, the Oakland A’s.
I couldn’t tell his 6’s from his 0’s. </p>
<p>Obscure and weird-looking to me, but correct. </p>
<p>I hate crimes against the apostrophe! I see “its” and “it’s” mixed up here and everywhere else, including online news stories, all the time. Grr.</p>
<p>Mannix – I was attempting a joke. :o </p>
<p>In reality, I remember seeing somewhere what jaylynn is talking about.</p>
<p>I agree that possessive apostrophes are horribly abused all the time. They are forced to work when there is no need for them. ;)</p>
<p>But even tho the style sheet says we should write 1900s and As, Ps and Qs, I like the look and clarity of the apostrophe. I KNOW it doesn’t mean possessive.</p>
<p>The only other way to do it would be to use quotes: "A"s. Which would require more keystrokes so who wants to do that?</p>
<p>The Ivy League refers to the athletic conference in which those schools compete. It is a proper name and therefore should be capitalized. :D</p>
<p>"The only other way to do it would be to use quotes: “A"s. Which would require more keystrokes so who wants to do that?”</p>
<p>Which is why the apostrophe is close to being obsolete. Give it a decade. Then it will be the last preserve of, gasp, English teachers’!’</p>
<p>Yeah, I don’t proof read posts on message boards. </p>
<p>But if it’s/its offensive, feel free to put me on ignore.</p>
<p>But unless I capitalize it, you won’t be impressed that I’m applying to an IVY school. ;)</p>
<p>Similarly, my D2 is an alumni of Bard College, not BARD College. It’s a simple one syllable name, not an acronym!</p>
<p>I like Bard. Just an aside. (Not a complete sentence, but fully communicative.)</p>
<p>This thread is cracking me up! (Can a person actually crack up?)</p>
<p>[The</a> Crack-Up by F. Scott Fitzgerald - Esquire](<a href=“http://www.esquire.com/features/the-crack-up]The”>F. Scott Fitzgerald's Essay The Crack-Up, From Esquire 1936)</p>
<p>Yeah, I meant you don’t need the Initial Upper Case Letter. AKA the IUCL. An acronym I just invented, most likely.:]</p>
<p>I love CC when people start making jokes. So many talents here.</p>
<p>
Ooh! Ooh! If only you’d said, “This thread is literally cracking me up!” (Really? Pictures or it didn’t happen!). We could’ve talked about one of my pet peeves.</p>