Apostrophe or not?

Summary:

"Baby-Sitters Club" or "Baby-Sitter's Club"?

Apostrophe or not?

Pigeonrat 26 Sep 2007 16:44

I believe all official sources (the scholastic website, the book covers) say it's "Baby-Sitter's Club" (and I think it's the first book where Janine comments that really, it should be "Baby-Sitters' Club"). Wikipedia uses "Baby-Sitters Club." We should really decide on one variant because, in article names, Baby-Sitter's Club and Baby-Sitters Club will go to entirely different places. Besides, it'll look neater.

I guess I would lean toward not using the apostrophe, on the basis that even the books themselves admit that it doesn't make that much sense punctuation-wise, and I think that the majority of people probably don't use the apostrophe when writing the series name. The problem (but also the bright side) is that most of us just use BSC all the time so the apostrophe is irrelevant. But on the other hand, the apostrophe IS in the official spelling.

Thoughts? Could we get away with doing a poll on the babysittersclub (again, no help!) LJ community to ask what the most common usage is? Although I'm not even sure if I could say how I most commonly write it.

Re: Apostrophe or not?

cpennylane 26 Sep 2007 18:20

If it's officially no apostrophe, then we should make it no apostrophe. I know I have probably slipped up and added the apostrophe in places, and for that, I'm sorry. I can go back and fix the ones that I see.

And I remember Janine saying that both ways were correct - then Kristy shuts the door on her and makes some comment about "the great apostrophe mystery". Drives me crazy that they think smart = bad. ;-)

Re: Apostrophe or not?

Pigeonrat 26 Sep 2007 18:50

Officially, on the book covers and the Scholastic website, it does have an apostrophe. I'm pretty sure I've used it both ways in the wiki myself, but we can fix it when we're sure what we're doing, no big deal.

Re: Apostrophe or not?

wanderingfrog 18 Oct 2007 03:22

Actually, rather than "Baby-Sitter's Club," "Baby-Sitters' Club," or "Baby-Sitters Club," I would go with "Baby-sitters Club," with a small "s" at the beginning of "sitters." Although there's a capital "S" in the block logo, you'll notice that it's always referred to in the text of the books as the "Baby-sitters Club." Except, of course, when it's abbreviated "BSC," which does not make the issue any clearer.

Re: Apostrophe or not?

Pigeonrat 19 Oct 2007 13:16

You're probably right. Although I think it would still be "Baby-Sitters Club" in titles where you're capitalizing other words. What is it on the back of books where they say "Save time! Call the Baby-Sitters Club"? I tried checking the eBook of #1, but in the part of the story where they design the flyer, they capitalize every letter in the club's name, so that's no help. But I don't think they do that on the book covers… but maybe they do.

If Scholastic were nicer they'd have simply published a "Writing about the BSC" style guide at some point.

Re: Apostrophe or not?

cpennylane 19 Oct 2007 15:11

If it's being used as a title, then both Baby and Sitters should be capitalized. If it's not part of a title, then sitters should not be capitalized, at least according to the Chicago stylebook I'm flipping through. Different styles have different rules though. I know I've probably capitalized them bothing, thinking that because it's being used as a proper noun both parts of the compound word should be capitalized. …

Re: Apostrophe or not?

wanderingfrog 20 Oct 2007 03:08

Yeah, different styles do have different rules, but Scholastic doesn't bother sticking to one style consistently, anyway. The series title usually seems to be "The Baby-sitters Club" in stuff like order forms or ads at the back of the books, yet the title of #8 is Boy-Crazy Stacey, not Boy-crazy Stacey.

Re: Apostrophe or not?

cpennylane 20 Oct 2007 04:01

But that is the same style, because Boy-Crazy Stacey is the title of the book. I think that if it's being used as a title, as in "I have many Baby-Sitters Club books", then both Baby and Sitters should be capitalized. If we are saying … Kristy Thomas is a baby-sitter in the Baby-sitters Club, then sitters would not be capitalized.

I think.

Re: Apostrophe or not?

bscwiki 22 Oct 2007 00:47

IAWTC
i don't know why ann didn't just make it the babysitters club. the hyphen stuff is so confusing.

Re: Apostrophe or not?

bscwiki 26 Sep 2007 20:24

OK, so i looked at the website, and it says "sitter's" in the LAYOUT only. the layout person also used a picture of hannie/karen/nancy to illustrate the baby-sitters club, so i do not think we can trust then as a fond of punctuational accuracy. on the covers and in the TEXT on the website, there is no apostrophe. i vote for NO APOSTROPHE.
i think that the apostrophe is something that flummoxed ann and her editors and that is why they made that joke about janine staring at the sign. interestingly, in many other languages the name is "club of the baby-sitters," so you'd think that it WOULD be baby-sitters'. oh well. so yeah i am going to go with BABY-SITTERS as the official wiki spelling.

Re: Apostrophe or not?

Pigeonrat 27 Sep 2007 01:58

I could have sworn there was an apostrophe in the logo on the covers, but you're right, there isn't. I don't know why I thought I remembered seeing one. I accept your official ruling :)