A plurality of plurals

Under most circumstances, I don't pull out my Grammar Police Deputy badge. After all, rules are made to be broken (albeit only by writers and actors who are deliberately using it to portray a character or make a point). True, some of the hesitation may also be due to the shiny glass walls around me (though in my defense, any lapses into unacceptable syntax are usually the result of laziness, rather than ignorance).

But this particular time of year drives me to grab people by their dangling participles and flog them with a subordinate clause. Why?

Happy New Years!

It is very sweet, but unnecessary of you to wish me good fortune for all the remaining years of my life. A single "Happy New Year" for 2012 would suffice. Or perhaps you meant the possessive: "Happy New Year's" - but New Year's what? A possessive needs an object.

While we are on the subject, the name of the grocery store is "Aldi", not "Aldis", unless you truly plan to run to multiple locations to stock up on supplies.

Of special irritation is the corruption of the name of the Bible-based kid's club, AWANA, to "AWANAS", as in "Our kids are in AWANAS at XYZ Church". As a long time leader for the club, I can tell you that the name is an acronym based on 2 Timothy 2:15 from the King James Bible:

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Your gratuitous pluralization changes the acronym from "approved workmen are not ashamed" to "approved workmen are not ashamed...sometimes".

The ess is strangely seductive, its serpentine curves and sibilant sound singing a siren song to those struggling in the quicksand of grammatical correctness. "Add me", she whispers. "I'm harmless", she coos.

Resist her, my friend, resist her.