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In youth volleyball teams are divided by age. For example, a team consisting of kids 12 and under is referred to as a "12s team" or "12's team", and they typically play teams in that same division. This age designation can also be paired with other words like "division", for example, "they're holding a tournament for teams in the 12s (12's) division."

I've seen both "12s" and "12's" in use, although "12's" seems more popular in Oklahoma. Which one is grammatically correct?

This is not a question on how to pluralize numbers, but rather a question about whether we are pluralizing numbers (12s) or if this is the possessive usage of a number (12's), or perhaps even an abbreviation (just like "they are" abbreviates to "they're"). In other words, are people implying "this is a team consisting of a multitude of 12s", "this is a team belonging to group number 12", or "this is a 12-and-under team"?

Alex
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  • Might be worth looking at this similar question about apostrophes with numbers – KillingTime Oct 02 '19 at 15:35
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    Possible duplicate of Plurals of acronyms, letters, numbers — use an apostrophe or not? (see J.T. Grimes's answer for a balanced view). Personally, I'd avoid the apostrophe-for-bare-plural, as you may want the option of say The 12s' display last night was poor, which looks terrible with the (optional) apostrophe-for-unusual-plural. // On ELU, punctuation is not considered a subset of grammar, so I'm reading 'acceptable' instead of 'grammatically correct'. And here, any ... – Edwin Ashworth Oct 02 '19 at 15:47
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    answer saying 'you must use the apostrophe' (or the opposite) is merely quoting a favoured style guide. And wrong (though a move towards more minimal punctuation is certainly taking place). – Edwin Ashworth Oct 02 '19 at 15:51
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    @EdwinAshworth I agree that it is a matter of style. But, I think the majority of style manuals agree on the subject. My quick, but admittedly non-exhaustive, search didn't come up with any examples to the contrary of my answer. – David M Oct 02 '19 at 22:38
  • @David M Nor the previous ELU coverage. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 03 '19 at 19:05
  • I don't see this question as a duplicate, so I added a paragraph to the bottom of this question to clarify what I'm asking. It's not asking how to write a number in plural (that's easy), but rather whether we're dealing with plural, possessive, or abbreviation. – Alex Oct 28 '19 at 23:00

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