How to Write Decades

People seem confused on how to write decades, so...

I decided I'd help people out

But since talking about it would take more than a Tweet, I'll dump my thoughts on it here. Awesome.

The problem

is that most folks like to write decades with the end apostrophe, like 90's, but what this actually reads as is "90 is" or "something belonging to 90", like some android named Ninety or something.

The correct way(s)

The key thing is that the apostrophe come first, to indicate the digits you're leaving out.

1990 becomes '90.

But what about possessives? you may ask. Okay you almost certainly didn't ask that, but you're here, so let's be thorough. Here's every situation I can think of, and how to write the decade properly in those situations.

• Default: '90, '91, etc. The Summer of '69.
• Plural: '90s, '80s, etc. "The best hits of the '70s, '80s, and '90s!"
• Possessive: '90's, '91's, etc. '92's biggest scandal.
• Plural Possessive: '90s', '80s', etc. The '90s' biggest artist.

And there you have it

Okay, bye.