Conductors Guild

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Amanda Winger from Richmond, Virginia.

Hello, Amanda.

Hi, Amanda.

How are you doing?

Hi, I’m doing great. I’m such a fan of your show.

Oh, yay. Welcome. Glad to have you here.

How can we help you?

Well, I am the executive director of the Conductors Guild, which is an international organization for music conductors.

Oh, cool.

And, yeah, we have an issue that just will not go to rest, so I’m hoping that you can help us.

Okay.

All right, we’ll try.

So our name, the Conductors Guild, we need to know whether there should be an apostrophe at the end or Conductor S or no apostrophe at all.

When we were founded, there was an apostrophe after the S, but somewhere along the way it dropped out and we still have board meetings about it.

I mean, we dedicate some time in our board meetings, so we kind of need to put this to bed.

How long has this been discussed?

Well, not long, but I mean, it just won’t die when we think we’ve come to the decision.

No apostrophe.

You know, I’ll get an email from somebody, but here’s why we should have an apostrophe.

And what do they say?

I’m curious about their apostrophe philosophy.

Well, the last one, I think someone quoted the elements of style or something, that it should be apostrophe S.

I don’t know.

But we run across, also, you know, we’ll go to hotels for events, and nine times out of ten it’s, welcome, conductor, apostrophe, S, guild.

And so we all cringe.

I don’t know.

So would you say the majority of your members are apostrophe free?

Yes, I think so.

Okay.

And are you allowed to say what you are?

I’m apostrophe free as well.

I would agree with you on this one.

Me too.

And my feelings about it have changed.

I used to like how it looked to have an apostrophe there.

But, you know, there’s just so much room for confusion.

Should it go between the R and the S?

Should it go on the end?

I think for simplicity and clarity, just don’t have it at all.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

I really wish in school, Amanda, that they had taught us about the kind of adjective properties of nouns.

Nouns can lend their characteristics to other nouns.

And this is something that for some reason people have confusion with when they become adults.

So it should be taught in the schools. That’s what’s happening here.

If you want a version of this name that kind of solves the whole problem, you would call yourself Guild of Conductors.

And there’s no apostrophe called for at all there.

And what we can see when we phrase it that way is there’s no possession taking place here.

The guild is not the property of the conductors.

Actually, what’s happening is the conductors are providing the characteristic of the guild.

They are more or less describing the guild as being about conductors or related to conductors or somehow affiliated with conductors.

But there’s no ownership there.

And as this argument continues and you have more and more board meetings, because I know this isn’t the final word, just let us know what the progress is like.

Yeah, send us the minutes.

Sure. Well, I’m hoping to close the case on this one.

Okay. Take good care. Thanks for calling.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

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