Weird Earl's vs Weird Earls

Kind of humorous to see a 's plural on the front page of a site devoted to fighting ignorance…



I have over 2000 posts, dammit! Show some respect.
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O p a l C a t
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I’ll defend it. URLs rather than URL’s, certainly. But either Earls or Earl’s works, the first as “this is a link to several odd people named Earl”, the second as “a link to the various strange sites belonging to Earl”. It’s a bit like calling the nutjob parts of the 'net Weird Earl’s World. Perhaps lacking in hilarity, but not clearly wrong.

picmr

I’ll not only defend ‘Earl’s’, I’ll argue against ‘Earls’.

‘Weird Earls’ doesn’t have much of a ring. ‘Why is there a section about strange noblemen here?’

Weird Earl’s however sounds like a discount store. ‘Weird Earl’s House of Discount Websites! All domains must go! 1/2 (of the IQ points) off!’ It sounds like the kind of place you’d expect to find things like ‘Walter Miller’s pitifull story’.


Eschew Obfuscation

Although a site featuring men whose ears you can see through and appear to have swallowed a ballcock would fit rather nicely. It would seem that that is what it would take to get this thread fired up. Oh well…

picmr

As others have indicated, if it were “URL” instead of “Earl,” then it wouldn’t be right to have the apostrophe. However, it’s a play on words. “Weird Earl’s” is made to sound like a place – the fact that it sounds like “URLs” is a joke. If it was called “Weird Ed’s” instead, would you be complaining about the apostrophe? No.

Actually, I would. I would read it as “Weird Eds” like many Eds who are weird.

Well, then apparently we need a special section on “Weird Opals.” :wink:

OpalCat is correct the plural of Weird Earl is Weird Earls.

David B is incorrect. There is only one Weird Opal. Here is Weird Opal’s.

That’s great, but we’re not talking about a plural. We’re talking about a possessive. For example, we have a restaurant in town called “Cecil’s.” It is not “Cecils” because there is only one Cecil (at least only one who owns/owned the restaurant), and it is his restaurant. That is the same idea with “Weird Earl’s” – view it as a place, not several weird people named Earl.

Indeed, after posting that, I noticed that you had used the proper possessive in “Weird Opal’s.”

I understand that, but it’s not clear when you read the phrase. I think most people would probably assume plural given that what it really is is a collection of weird urls.

That’s wordplay for you.

Picmr said:

Yup, I guess so. Some people will get it, some people won’t. :wink: