Booher BanterBusiness Communication Consultant

With less than a nine percent approval rating, Congress might attract your ire for doing or not doing just about anything regarding the current economic mess:  There’s enough blame to go around to the various federal agencies established, those appointed to run the agencies, those who profited from little or no regulation of those agencies, and laws passed (or not passed) with the safety of the American taxpayers’ money in mind.  

But I’ll let people much smarter than I debate what blame goes where and how to get us out of the mess.

All my little mind wants to tackle at the moment is the grammar of the headline here.  You may be asking how I can be focusing on a point of grammar when people are losing their retirement savings, college funds, or even their jobs.  My response:  Some people work crossword puzzles, do Sudoku, or watch football for stress relief.   Me? Grammar glitches get my attention.  (Yes, I’m easily amused.)

Plural Compound Nouns:

Rule of Thumb:  Add the –s to the principal noun rather than the entire word.
Examples:  editors-in-chief, maids-of-honor

Exception:  When the principal noun is a contained (such as a bucket, a hand, a scoop, a spoon), add the “s” to the entire word to form the plural.
Examples:   handfuls, scoopfuls, spoonfuls

I hope you found this little grammar reminder a helpful and welcome respite from the stress of today’s economic headlines.  If you want more such tidbits, you’ll find them monthly in Corporate Writer Resource.

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