Mr Rodrigues has two questions on the use and interpretation of the apostrophe.
a. When you are talking about a number of persons holding a Bachelor of Arts degree, do you say BA’s or just BAs?

Practice varies. The New York Times  Manual  of Style and Usage recommends the use of the apostrophe. But it is best to limit it to cases where the meaning may not be clear otherwise. There is no problem with DAs, MPs, etc. But if you are talking about individual letters, the apostrophe is helpful. Cross your t’s lest they be mistaken for l’s.

b. The PA’s job is tough. (You are talking about a PA in general and his work.)
The PA’s had a meeting to choose their leader.

How do you distinguish between the two?
PA’s might appear the same in both the sentences. But in the first sentence PA’s is the possessive modifier of job. The subject phrase is the PA’s job in which the head is job. This is modified by the article the and the possessive phrase PA’s.

In the second sentence there is only one modifier the. The head is PA’s. If this were a possessive form we should have the head noun which the possessive would modify.  There is no such noun. So the head is PA’s.
Then what is the apostrophe?  The apostrophe in English is used for several purposes: to indicate the possessive case (Sheila’s bangles); to indicate the plural of nouns abbreviated by letters (MP’s). In view of this the PA’s in the second sentence should be interpreted as representing a number of Personal Assistants.
The analysis given above may appear to be needlessly complicated. But if a machine (a computer) were to process the string, that is how it would go about the job.

Still on the possessive, let us take up a question from Mr Inamdar. How do we describe the arrangements made when a teacher is absent? Is it Absentee’s arrangements or Absentee arrangements?
Absentee’s arrangements would suggest arrangements made by the absentee. We don’t want that. So: Absentee arrangements.

2. Now back to Rodrigues. He wants to know the plural of e-mail. The plural, is, of course, e-mails but many still have some reservation about this form. They prefer something like several e-mail messages. The point here is that mail as such has no plural form in Standard British English. (This matter has been discussed several times in these columns; most recently in EFU dated Dec. 13, 2007.)

3. Now for a number of questions all having to do with subject—verb agreement. Venkataramana K V wants to know the form of the verb in the following sentences.

c. Usually, ignoring and forgetting small mistakes gives one confidence to make bigger mistakes.
The subject is not mistakes but ignoring and forgetting small mistakes. Here we have two conjoined phrases: ignoring small mistakes and forgetting them. The two are related activities constituting one process and resulting in confidence to make bigger mistakes. Agreement is, therefore, with a singular verb although there are two phrases connected by and. (Remember the school grammar sentence: The Secretary and the Treasurer has decamped with the cash?)

Suppose we had two distinct activities indicated by the subject phrase. Writing a research paper and writing short stories are two different activities and call for different abilities. The subject phrase, though apparently similar to the one at (a) is of a different type.

d. Every one has the right to make mistakes and regret it / them.
Regret what? The right to make mistakes? No. What you regret is the mistakes. The object of regret is mistakes, a plural noun. So the referring pronoun should be them.

e. Digging your nose or leaving your shoelaces perpetually untied is / are bad habit(s).
There are two distinct activities expressed in the subject phrase. But the conjunction is or which is part of the fuller correlative either –or. The sentence is equivalent to Either digging your nose or leaving your shoelace  perpetually untied---a bad habit. Clearly the sense is ‘either is a bad habit’. The required verb is is.
f.…secular education and scientific temper  of people which make/ makes them question everything.
A secular education need not necessarily breed a scientific temper. They are two different things.  Use a plural verb (make).

Wg Cdr Hande:  Why sense of belongingness, when belonging will do?
Many an Indian when he first lands in the west will get a feeling that he doesn’t  belong there (=He is in a society where he doesn’t fit)’ more so in England than in the US.

The sense of ‘belonging’ comes from shared social and cultural values, history, etc.
At a further level of abstraction, you can talk about ‘belongingness’ as a social feeling, a concept in sociology.

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