I'm cross posting this here, since the "Editors"/"Editing" Forum has essentially been dead for some time.
In the following sentence:
That too received a chorus of encouraging "Boo!"s.
should it be "Boos!" or "Boo!"s?
Both seem sorta correct, while also seeming sorta wrong too. Again, this is casual, teasing usage, so the standard rule's probably don't apply. The Boos are obviously plural, yet if each one is repeating the boos, is it a case of plural plurals?
I go for boos, feeling more like giving a feeling of displeasure...while boo's I feel is more like a ghosts boo tryin ta scare ya!
SunSeeker
Well, for me, it gets rather simple when I look at where the quotation marks sit.
People don't scream "BOOS", they scream "BOO". And if you want to express that there's multiple people screaming the same thing, the plural would be BOO's, just like you would hear multiple hello's when entering a room (instead of "Hellos").
Alas, I was focusing more on the emphasis (the final exclamation mark) than I was on the plural notation. But still, in your case, wouldn't it be "Boos" rather than "Boo's" (the possessive form of boo)? And if multiple people are all shouting boos, then wouldn't that be a chorus of "Boos!" since they're ALL emphatically shouting the word, rather than passively saying "boo" at the same time by random chance?
Which again, is why I was trying to ask this in the "Editors" forum, rather than in the "Authors" forum, as with authors, we each tend to have our own preferences on a wide variety of different topics. ;) Thus here, it's more like trying to herd cats than getting a definitive definition.
While I tend to take the more pedantic line, in most instances, as it winds people up the most. ;)
just like you would hear multiple hello's
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the plural of Hello is Hellos.
My "Hello" example was more about the quotation marks missing. Because people don't SAY "Hellos", they give their hellos, so to speak.
Because people don't SAY "Hellos"
The context of usage is: A man approaches a group of 3 men and says hello to each man. Thus, he has said his hellos to the men.
I tend to think that "Boo!" is trying to scare you. A "Boo," is a verbal thumbs down.
If you want lots of boos, that are capitalized, you can use BOOs. Never use an apostrophe for that.
Lots of scary "Boo!s" or "BOO!s" works for me.