Opinion: The grammar of Madden game name makes for unnecessary brain pain

Madden NFL 10. That’s the official name of this year’s edition of the now ubiquitous football game. For grammar snobs, professional media and a lot of uninitiated game-purchasing parents, it’s also a point of grand annoyance.

First, consider the grammatical aspects of the name. To properly abbreviate a year you place an apostrophe where letters or, in this case, numbers are missing. That’d be the “20″ portion of 2010 making it ’10 (instead of 10′ as many people seem to prefer). Otherwise, sans apostrophe, it’s the number after 9 and before 11, not after 2009 and before 2011. That’s a huge difference (by at least 2000 years). This is also the point that frustrates the bajeesus out of non-gaming professional copy editors across the states.