Decades, Years - Proper AP Style

Posted: June 28, 2010

Confused about how to style decades? Is it the 1990's or the '90's? May a sentence begin with a year (2010)? Here's what the Associated Press Sylebook says about decades and years.

Confused about how to style decades? Is it the 1990's or the '90's? May a sentence begin with a year (2010)? Here's what the Associated Press Sylebook says about decades and years.

Decades - Use Arabic figures to indicate decades of history. Use an apostrophe to indicate numerals that are left out; show plural by adding the letter s: the 1890s, the '90s, the Gay '90s, the 1920s, the mid-1930s.

Years - Use figures, without commas: 1975. When a phrase refers to a month, day and year, set off the year with a comma: Feb. 14, 1987, is the target date. Use an s without an apostrophe to indicate spans of decades or centuries: the 1890s, the 1800s.

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