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Plural family names??

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nancy sv

nancy sv

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I know if I was talking about all the members of the Smith family I would say Smiths, and I could say Vogels for all the people in the Vogel family. But somehow "all the Perrys" is wrong - it just doesn't work for the people in the Perry family. It can't be Perry's because that would be possessive. So - how would you write that for those families that end in a vowel?

The Smiths are taking off soon.
The Vogels are taking off soon.
The Perrys are taking off soon. - doesn't work Why?
The Sathres are taking off soon. - doesn't work Why??
 
IceCreamEmpress

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"The Perrys" is correct. It looks odd to us because we're used to seeing plurals of similarly spelled common nouns like "the berries" and "the cherries" but the plurals of proper nouns aren't formed the same way.
 
TsukiRyoko

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...This is a really good question. As far as grammar goes, I don't know the correct way to showcase the plural name, but you could always reword it to fit.

"The Perry family is taking off soon."
"The Sathre family is taking off soon."

That's the only thoughts I can offer on this one.
 
nancy sv

nancy sv

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I could rewrite the sentence - but I don't want to! I like what I've got, but it just doesn't look right. If I put Perrys in the there, would it throw people off when they read it? I know I would stumble on it because it just looks wrong!
 
IceCreamEmpress

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Well, you have to go one way or the other. Either you write "All the Perrys..." or you write "The whole Perry family..." because those are your only two choices.
 
TsukiRyoko

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IceCreamEmpress said:
Well, you have to go one way or the other. Either you write "All the Perrys..." or you write "The whole Perry family..." because those are your only two choices.
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Sad, but true. As far as the plural goes, I don't think it's wrong, I think it just looks weird. But then, I think that "their" looks strange too, so....
 
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