If a ship is named the Scienta Victoria, and I wish to drop the first word for the sake of brevity, is it proper to place an apostrophe before the "Victoria" to signify the dropped word?
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1'Obama met up with 'Putin. In Washington'. In other news, Brad' married Jennifer'.– RegDwigнtNov 9, 2013 at 22:32
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1 Answer
No apostrophe needed. From today’s news:
NORFOLK, Va. — The Navy christened the USS Gerald Ford on Saturday with the traditional smashing of a bottle of sparkling wine across the bow of the ship — the most technologically advanced aircraft carrier the United States has built.
The Ford is the lead ship in the Navy’s next class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.
And later in the same piece:
The Ford — with a new nuclear power plant, electromagnetic catapults and an enhanced 5-acre flight deck — will leave dry dock and head to a pier at Newport News Shipbuilding next week.
From NOAD:
apostrophe (noun) a punctuation mark ( ’ ) used to indicate either possession e.g., Harry’s book; boys’s coats) or the omission of letters or numbers [emphasis added] (e.g., can’t; he’s; class of ’99)
So, feel at liberty to tell everyone about the expeditions of the Victoria, provided that you clarify by mentioning the full name of the ship sometime earlier in the text.
