Hi,

>>But suddenly dozens of Ryuta Uehara's and Sayuri's
>>Ueharas and Sayuris
>
>You think?  I didn't like the way that looked, and sticking the >'s' at the end could lead to the possible confusion that that's >how you spell the name.

Yep, I'm sure. Apostrophe-s is only used for:
1) Possessives: "Kasumi, those aren't my clothes; they're Sayuri's!"
2) Contraction for "is": "Don't worry, Hiroshi. Uehara's a wuss."

Sticking in an apostrophe for a plural is a common mistake, but it's
wrong. As for confusion, well, yeah, but that's just the way it is. >It's only our knowledge of American names that tells us that "Jones" >is singular and "Joneses" is plural.

<nod>  The basic rules aside, there are situations where an apostrophe can be used for showing plurial: multiples of an abbrieviation, for example:
"A swarm of UFO's decended upon the unsuspecting town."  I made a mistake in thinking that could be applied to first names as well.  Oh well.  I still think 'Sayuris' looks bad, but who am I to argue with the laws of grammar?  <sigh>  I'll be changing that over.

Another question, though: I want to post this (after making a few revision) to RAAC, but don't have access to the newsgroup - what's an alternate method of posting?  (I tried Deja.com, but Decision was too large; I'm hoping to avoid breaking it up.)

Again, thanks!
Mike
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