“Gabby” Street was an old-time catcher, manager, coach, and broadcaster who died the year I was born. I always assumed his nickname came from his talkativeness, but no, it came from his racist behavior. In his own words:
“We used to call the colored boys ‘Gabby’ down in Alabama, and when I wanted a new baseball thrown into the game I used to call, ‘Hey Gabby, where’s the baseball?’ . . . If you see a black boy and you want him, and you don’t know his name, you yell, ‘Hey, Gabby.’ It works in St. Louis, too, and if you don’t believe it, try it. To me all black boys have been ‘Gabby,’ and I got my nickname from the use of that word and not, as is commonly believed, because I am a chatterbox.”
I got this telling bit of information from the best book of social history I’ve read in some time, Martha Ackmann’s Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone: The First Woman to Play Professional Baseball in the Negro League
(Thanks for the book, Sven and Leslie!)
Photo 1
Photo 2
Yeah, she hated those publicity photos.
In Ireland, “sambo” is short for “sandwich”. In the 80s, Antrim hurler Terence “Sambo” McNaughten became a minor cult hero: a bald, overweight man playing for a historically weak team enjoying a purple patch. I assumed his nickname came from his impressive gut; but no, he acquired it in a childhood incident in which his face had got covered in engine oil.
Another good biography dealing in part with the inherent racism in society is Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
I have yet to read it, myself, but apparently noöne has yet heard a bad word about it. Skloot has been interviewed on numerous podcasts and she blogs intermittently on Scienceblogs.
Hearing just how poorly the Lacks family was treated by ‘the scientific establishment’ is saddening.
Reading the linked material on HeLa and HPV (Human Papilloma Virus), I came across examples of a plural formation that I’ve often wondered about – here it was “HPV’s” for “Human Papilloma Viruses”. An “apostrophe-s” is appended to acronymic or numeric “words” such as “70” for “seventy”, as in “in the seventies” [temperature, 1970’s]. Recently, when I have written “in the 70’s”, I used the apostrophe although it might expose me to a charge of being unlettered or careless.
The thing is, “70s” could be taken to be an acronym, or the name of a cellphone model, and so momentarily halt the flow of reading. Also, there is for me a bit of a genitive feel to some uses, as in “in the 70’s” – although I can’t clearly identify my reasons for feeling that. But whatever in the past may have been practice or doctrine regarding the use of an apostrophe before the “s” in plural forms, I suspect that the enormous number of acronyms, model names etc. that riddle texts nowadays make it advisable to use ” ‘s “. To return to my original example, “HPVs” without an apostrophe might have seemed to be a subtype of “HPV”.
What do other people think about this use of an apostrophe in the plural of an acronym ?
I’d be cautious about that apostrophe, it’s clearly peeve-bait. It’s a good idea, though– in a peeve-free context, a disambiguating apostrophe would be a useful innovation.
I use the apostrophe occasionally but leave it out when it seems OK. I’m getting used to not using it.
I (following the Chicago Manual) use the apostrophe before, not after, the decade abbreviation: the ’70s. And I don’t use it with plurals unless they have interior punctuation: URLs, but M.A.’s (although I would write MAs).
the decade abbreviation: the ’70s
Sigh. How could I have forgotten that … Now I see where my idea came from that there is a genitive somewhere in there: the ’70s of the 19th century, i.e. “the 19th’s 70s”.
Thus 1871 was the 19th’s 8th decade’s first year.
I write “Masters” for the degree but “barber’s”, “baker’s”, “grocer’s” for the shops.
IN ALLCAPS TEXT APOSTROPHES AND FULL STOPS ARE USEFUL TO DISTINGUISH E.G. S.A.R.S. FROM S.A.R.’S FROM SARS.
What? No. The apostrophe there is of omission, as in ’tis or it’s, when they’re both short for “it is”. Not a genitive. (Not a left open quote either, despite what Microsoft Word and many advertising agencies think.)
I’d be cautious about that apostrophe, it’s clearly peeve-bait.
I love the idea of listing your pet peeves in The British Journal of Anesthesia. You’d just have to take care you didn’t bore anyone to death.
“What do other people think about this use of an apostrophe in the plural of an acronym ?” I used to use it but by dint of sheer guts, grit, and can-do spirit, have largely vanquished the addiction.