Writer's Association

At college, I belonged to the Cortland Writers Association. I found it incredibly hilarious that nobody knew how to spell it. Or, more accurately, nobody knew the proper grammar of it.

Very often it was written as Cortland Writer's Association or Cortland Writers' Association (both of which are wrong). What made it so funny was that the answer was so obvious if people would just sit down and think about what these variations mean. The first one is laughably wrong because "writer's" is singular, so that would be the association of the single Cortland writer. Though, I admit that f it was accurate, it would also be incredibly sad.

The latter one is arguably accurate. It indicates an organization which is owned by Cortland writers. And, in a sense, CWA was that. The one problem is simply that there is a far better alternative.

The Cortland Writers Association (with no apostrophes) is an association comprised of Cortland writers, which is exactly what the organization is, which is exactly why that is the actual name of the group.

I bring this up because it is not an isolated incident, but a structure in English. I see musicians clubs and artists groups. None of them should have apostrophes, but you do see them, especially when amateurs write them out.

Learn this construction so you don't have to question yourself the next time you come across it. But if you do come across a similarly puzzling situation, sit down and think about it logically. English may not make a ton of sense, but most things can be logically deduced when you have a big enough base of knowledge to draw from (and this particular example does not need much at all).