r _enamoratoes_ and
_virtuosoes_. Errors of this kind, should be carefully avoided.

OBS. 22.--The apostrophe and _s_ are sometimes added to mere characters, to
denote plurality, and not the possessive case; as, two _a_'s, three _b_'s,
four 9's. These we cannot avoid, except by using the _names_ of the things:
as, two _Aes_, three _Bees_, four _Nines_. "Laced down the sides with
little _c_'s."--_Steele_. "Whenever two _gg_'s come together, they are both
hard."--_Buchanan_. The names of _c_ and _g_, plural, are _Cees_ and
_Gees_. Did these authors _know_ the words, or did they not? To have
learned the _names_ of the letters, will be found on many occasions a great
convenience, especially to critics. For example: "The pronunciation of
these two consecutive _s's_ is hard."--_Webber's Gram._, p. 21. Better:
"_Esses_." "_S_ and _x_, however, are exceptions. They are pluralyzed by
adding _es_ preceded by a hyphen [-], as the _s-es_; the _x-es_."--_O. B.
Peirce's Gram._, p. 40. Better, use the _names, Ess_ and _Ex_, and
pluralize thus: "the _Esses_; the _Exes_."

"Make Q's of answers, to waylay
What th' other party's like to say."
--_Hudibras_, P. III, C. ii, l. 951.

Here the cipher is to be read _Kues_, but it has not the meaning of this
name merely. It is put either for the plural of _Q._, a _Question_, like D.
D.'s, (read _Dee-Dees_,) for _Doctors of Divinity_; or else, more
erroneously, for _cues_, the plural of _cue_, a turn which the next speaker
catches.

OBS. 23.--In the following example, the apostrophe and _s_ are used to give
the sound of a _verb's_ termination, to words which the writer supposed
were not properly verbs: "When a man in a soliloquy reasons with himself,
and _pro's_ and _con's_, and weighs all his designs."--_Congreve_. But
here, "_proes_ and _cons_," would have been more accurate. "We put the
ordered number of _m's_ into our composing-stick."--_Printer's Gram._ Here
"_Ems_" would have done as well. "All measures for _folio's_ and
_quarto's_, should be made to _m's_ of the English body; all measures for
_octavo's_, to Pica _m's_."--_Ibid._ Here regularity requires, "_folios,
quartoes, octavoes_," and "_pica Ems_." The verb _is_, when contracted,
sometimes gives to its nominative the same form as that of the possessive
case, it not being always spaced off for distinction, as it may be; as,

"A _wit's_ a feather, and a chief a rod;
An honest _man's_ the noblest work of God."