Straight As Or Straight A’s? Here’s The Plural Of Grades (+9 Examples)

Plurals and possessive forms have very particular rules that you must get right to understand the language. Using an apostrophe dictates possession, and using an “s” dictates plurals (generally). But what happens when we use a letter? Is it As or A’s?

Is It “Straight As” Or “Straight A’s”?

The plural of the grade A is “A’s.” We use an apostrophe when writing the plural form of a single letter. An apostrophe often shows us the possessive form, but in this case, we have to use “A’s” because, without it, the plural form would look ambiguous. “As” is already a word, so if we want to show “A” as a plural, we need to make sure we include the apostrophe.

Do Grades Need An Apostrophe AP Style?

The AP stylebook tells us a lot about apostrophes and how to use them. We should use an apostrophe when writing in the possessive form. The possessive form is when a word owns another object in a sentence, like “the dog’s house” or “the kid’s toy.” However, grades are not using an apostrophe in the same manner. They’re one of the few acceptions to the AP style rule.

Because it’s ambiguous whether you’re writing a plural or not, you’ll want to include “A’s” as the plural form. However, some style guides (including AP style) suggest that this rule applies mostly to lower-case letters. They say it should only be used for upper-case letters when the outcome might be confused with another word (like “as” and “A’s”).

Does The Same Rule Apply When Pluralizing Letters In General?

As we’ve already mentioned, the same rule applies no matter what letter you’re pluralizing. If you’re trying to write “B” in the plural, for example, you would need to write “B’s” to show it. It is possible to get away with “Bs,” but many dictionaries don’t recognize it as a word, and it can be hard for readers to understand exactly what you mean when they read it for the first time.

For that reason, make sure you’re always putting in an apostrophe when writing the plural form of letters. It is one of the few exceptions to the apostrophe rules for possessive form words.

9 Examples Of How To Use The Plural Of Grades In A Sentence

To help you out, we’ve put together a list of examples of how to use plurals of grades. Since you mostly only ever need to pluralize a letter when you’re speaking about grades in this way, we thought it made the most sense to only cover examples related to this. You’ll rarely come across any other case where you might need to write a plural letter, so don’t worry too much about them!

1. I got straight A’s on all my tests.
2. She got straight B’s, apparently.
3. He needs straight A’s if he wants to get into his dream college.
4. You got straight D’s and haven’t made it through.
5. We can’t hire some who got straight D’s, I’m afraid.
6. Your straight A’s alone are more than enough to get you in here.
7. You have four A’s and three B’s, correct?
8. How many B’s and C’s do I need to pass officially?
9. This position needs three B’s and two C’s to apply successfully.

Tip To Remember The Plural Of The Grades

To help you remember the plural of grades, we’ve got a little bit of information. Basically, try and remember that it’s always the opposite of what the apostrophe rule usually is. Since we write apostrophes when using the possessive form and leave them out in the plural form, remember that with letters, we use apostrophes to show off our plurals instead.

If that doesn’t work, we have an easier tip. Write your letters with and without an apostrophe. You’ll often see exactly what we mean when we say how important the apostrophe is to make your meaning clear. “As” is already a word, so “A’s” is what we need. “Us” is also a word, so “U’s” would be correct. Even when it’s not a word, though, look at something like “Xs.” That would hurt anyone’s head if they had to read that on a screen or paper! That’s why we’d use “X’s” to separate the two letters from each other to show the plural form.