I saw this yesterday on Fox News Channel.

Problem:
The apostrophe does not belong.

Explanation:
The news-related discussion on Fox News Channel (FNC) was about Caroline Kennedy’s public-relations campaign to get selected by New York’s governor to be the replacement for Senator Hillary Clinton, who had been nominated by President-Elect Barack Obama to be his Secretary of State.

FNC displayed a banner at the bottom of the TV screen during the discussion.

The banner asked “DO KENNEDY’S HAVE TO WORK TWICE AS HARD?” because the discussion focused on whether a member of the Kennedy family has to work harder to prove himself or herself to the public so as to avoid the appearance of a sense of entitlement from the legacy of President John F. Kennedy.

Pluralizing a proper noun that ends in “y” requires simply that an “s” be added to the end.

In other words, a name such as “Kennedy” should not be changed to “Kennedies” — with an I-E-S –and should not be changed to “Kennedy’s” — with an APOSTROPHE-S — when pluralizing it.

I suspect that a spelling checker encouraged the TV banner writer to make the mistake of pluralizing “Kennedy” by adding an apostrophe followed by an “s” because a spelling checker will recognize this form as correct. Unfortunately, this form is correct for the possessive, singular form of “Kennedy” and not for the plural form of “Kennedy”.

Solution:
“Do Kennedys have to work …”