Originally Posted by
ScruttonStreet
Fellow pedants, please help me
I am delighted to have stumbled across this thread: I have a conundrum for a presentation I am currently writing.
I want to use the last slide to highlight what the client should do, and what the client should not do. So should I write
1) Dos and Don'ts - technically correct, but looks horrid
2) Does and Don'ts - I can mangle the language here by pretending the plural of 'do' is 'does' but I can't think of an evidence to back this up and of course it looks like something that rhymes with 'doves'.
3) Do's and don'ts - although technically incorrect I fear it actually looks the best of the three to me.
So should I embrace the wonderful flexibility of the English language and go with (3)?
Personally? I'd go with (1) because it's consistent with my stylistic preference for not using an apostrophe to form a plural. I agree that (3) looks OK despite being internally inconsistent, and that (2) is the least satisfactory because "does" is a pronounceable word with a different meaning. Or one might sidestep the problem, e.g., by using injunctions DO and DO NOT. Nice conundrum. However you choose resolve it, nothing unpleasant is going to happen.