# Is it 1900's or 1900s?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-1900s-or-1900s/492731>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 11, 2009, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-1900s-or-1900s/492731 "2009-04-11T07:59:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 22

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**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-1900s-or-1900s/492731/22 "2009-04-13T00:42:41Z")

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> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> Cecil is sometimes wrong.
> 
> 😃

Pride goeth before a fall, **Exapno**. 😃

> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> …fo’c’sle…

It’s fo’c’s’le, short for forecastle. (To be fair, this is probably the most obscure instance of Gaudere’s Law _ever_.)

Does anyone else remember the New Yorker cartoon in which a lowly sailor, writing a letter home, asks a companion, “How many apostrophes in _fo’c’s’le_?”

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