When writing a headline, it's acceptable to pluralize a single letter with an apostrophe. Consider if the unnecessary letter was A. "Who needs the unecessary As" is confusing without context, no?
I'm surprised no one has commented on the unecessary n I omitted from unnecessary.
Oh, lookit there, you certainly did. Interesting! It changes the form of the word, moving it more inline with words that are negated by prepending "a" (asymptomatic, amoral, asexual, azeotropic…). This presents me with a conundrum: I find it easy to accept your premise that the 2nd "n" is not required, but I can't decide whether your resultant form "unecessary" passes muster, or if the "u" should become an "a" to give us "anecessary" (anatural, etc.). It could be argued that "a-" denotes—or at least connotes—"without" more than "not", but that breaks down with words like "azeotrope".
E's? Really?
Yes, really. What is your objection?
My objection is to the apostrophe. Should it not be "Es"?
No, it shouldn't. Single letters are commonly pluralised with an apostrophe and a lowercase "s".
I'm not sure, Daniel — I also tend to avoid unnecessary apostrophes when pluralizing capital letters (though I concede it may be a matter of taste).
e.g. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/621/01…
When writing a headline, it's acceptable to pluralize a single letter with an apostrophe. Consider if the unnecessary letter was A. "Who needs the unecessary As" is confusing without context, no?
I'm surprised no one has commented on the unecessary n I omitted from unnecessary.
My eyes went straight to the picture. I didn't even glance at the title.
Oh, lookit there, you certainly did. Interesting! It changes the form of the word, moving it more inline with words that are negated by prepending "a" (asymptomatic, amoral, asexual, azeotropic…). This presents me with a conundrum: I find it easy to accept your premise that the 2nd "n" is not required, but I can't decide whether your resultant form "unecessary" passes muster, or if the "u" should become an "a" to give us "anecessary" (anatural, etc.). It could be argued that "a-" denotes—or at least connotes—"without" more than "not", but that breaks down with words like "azeotrope".
Very interesting indeed!
I haven't gotten past the "unecessary."