Weird situation - using quotes as nouns and making them plural (APA format)

I'm in a strange situation where I need to take two short phrases and make them into plural nouns. Here's the context:

His was the destabilizing blow in a long bombardment of Why Latin?’s and waste of time’s.

The "Why Latin's" and "waste of time's" are obviously the problem. Do I italicize them? Use quotes? And how do I make them plural? Do I use apostrophes?

Solution 1:

I am assuming both "Why Latin?" and "Waste of time" are actual quotes (probably from disgruntled Latin students.) As such, I would keep them between quotation marks.

There are no hard and fast rules about whether the pluralizing 's' should go inside or outside the closing quotation mark. In my opinion, it should go outside so the quoted phrase (or title) remains unaltered.

Also, as each quote is a stand-alone phrase, I would capitalize them both.

His was the destabilizing blow in a long bombardment of "Why Latin?"s and "Waste of time"s.

The other option, of course, is to rephrase it and avoid the pluralizing of the quotations altogether. I suppose that's a question of clarity vs. creativity.

Solution 2:

I'd probably italicize rather than using quotation marks, and hyphenate the phrases in question. Something like this:

"Her constant barrage of what-ifs and when-will-wes made the trip tiresome."

Solution 3:

Paul B example is correct here - and his comment about rephrasing is on point. Best to word it differently to just avoid the situation:

His was the destabilizing blow after many instances of "Why Latin?" and "waste of time".