One William, two Williams
In today's Knoxville News Sentinel has a story about the Williams sisters playing each other at Wimbledon. The deck says (you can select the image for a bigger view) Williams have learned to handle final meetings.Williams?
That's their last name, Williams. Not William. The plural of "Williams" is "Williamses".
Brian Garner, in the Chicago Manual of Style calls something like Williamses "awkward" and advises you to reword your sentence to avoid it, but it's the right form. "Williams" is the plural of "William"; "Williamses" is the plural of "Williams".
2 Comments:
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At 1:28 AM, July 06, 2008
The Exterminator had this to say...
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At 12:26 AM, July 07, 2008
The Ridger, FCD had this to say...
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<-- Older Post ^ Home Newer Post -->I'm always happy to see someone besides me getting pissed off at the grammar faux pas in our newspapers and magazines.
No problem, though. When the world of information is reduced to what one can learn from YouTube videos, the mechanics of language won't matter at all. Which of the news grunters looks best will be all that matters.
English is tougher than you think. We may continue to shed all our inflections, but we've been doing that since the Great Vowel Shift and the language continues to thrive.
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