World Pilots' Day: A Study in Grammar

Welcome to the Grammar Minute, where we're saving the English language sixty seconds at a time! I'm Lauren Smyth, and recently it was World Pilots' Day. I saw several different treatments of the word "Pilots," but the main confusion seemed to be whether there should be an apostrophe to denote possession, and if so, where it should be.

Whether there should or shouldn't be an apostrophe is probably a stylistic preference. Different style guides, such as AP and Chicago, have different views on this. Personally, I think the day belongs to the pilots, so there should be an apostrophe. If we're going to include this, where should it fall? Because the day belongs to multiple pilots, not just one, the apostrophe should come after the final s. Pilots apostrophe. Kudos to AOPA for getting this spelling correct. They seem to know a thing or two about airplanes and grammar, which in my book is the perfect combination.

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