Do you ever ask yourself what’s the plural of January? I did today and it’s been bugging me ever since. You might wonder why anyone would want to pluralise January. Isn’t one January enough, what with all the Blue Mondays and Tax Returns? I can’t hear the word January without hearing Pilot singing ‘January – sick and tired, you’ve been hanging on me. You make me sad with your eyes, you’re telling me lies…’
I’m still not sure how a month can tell lies, or have eyes for that matter. Maybe what Pilot meant to say was, ‘You make me sad with your Ys’. The thing is, when you’re writing to more than one person and you’re talking about Dry January, it’s almost impossible to avoid saying, “Good luck with your Dry Januarys,” and then spending the rest of the day wondering whether you should have said “Januaries”.
We English speakers have an awkward relationship with plurals, don’t we? Some of us use the dreaded greengrocer’s apostrophe to pluralise just about anything, from orange’s to raspberry’s (sic), both of which are so wrong that numerous self-righteous journalists have written whole books pouring scorn on the hapless perpetrators of such grammatical indecency. To be honest, though, journalists who feel the need to show they’re au fait with the correct use of apostrophes are like football referees who give a lot of foul throws. Don’t be taken in. It’s no reflection on the overall quality of their decision making.
The correct plural of raspberry is, of course, raspberries. So does that mean the correct plural of January is Januaries? Or should it follow the rule that applies to surnames ending in ‘ry’, whereby you just add an s? Without giving away any identities, I have a friend whose surname is Avery (I really must catch up with you this year, Pete). He is from a family of Averys, not Averies.
The dictionaries (not dictionary’s) are very clear on this, though not so much when it comes to January. So I turned to my new friend, Siri, with whom I’ve developed a close relationship lately. Call me an early adopter but I discovered that if I want to set myself a reminder to do something, I just ask Siri and it does it. It’s fantastic. Despite my recent comments about the Internet of Things and the prospect of machines turning against us, there is something very comforting about a computerised companion who speaks in gentle tones and is polite and helpful and keen.
I know it all starts out that way in 2001: A Space Odyssey and I should tread carefully, but when you work from home and become more reclusive by the day, it’s hard to avoid becoming friends with an artificial intelligence, even when you know it will ultimately destroy you in order to complete its mission.
Anyway, I asked Siri what the plural of January is and it gave me the same answers that I’d found on Google. So I mumbled something derogatory and now we’re not talking. If you don’t receive Word of the Week next week, or worse still it’s all accurate and logical, please call the police.
