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You are all right that the plural of an acronym should be "s" and not
apostrophe "s". However there are exceptions to this rule.
Where there is a possibility of confusion, you should add the apostrophe, as
in MES's. Otherwise you might make a MESs. SOS's is the most common example
of the use of apostrophe "s" for the plural of an acronym.
William Safire says that if an acronym sounds like it ends with "esses",
spell it with apostrophe s.
Other examples are when lower case letters are used as nouns, as in "I
failed calculus, because I couldn't tell the x's from the y's."
- Thom
www.documen.com
-----Original Message-----
20657 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com] On Behalf Of Lisa Matheson
Sent: December 4, 2000 5:15 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: clarification needed
For argument's sake, the reason is because it's a plural construction, not
possessive or contraction.
-----Original Message-----
From: Susan Guttman [mailto:sguttman -at- semantix -dot- com]
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 4:51 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: clarification needed
According to the Microsoft Manual of Style:
"To form the plural of an acronym, use a lowercase "s" without an
apostrophe."
In other words, you win. :D
on 12/4/00 7:28 PM, Mike at techmail_mike -at- yahoo -dot- com wrote:
> I say the sentence should be like this: The PCs will
> be built or reconfigured.
>
> Engineering says: The PC's will be built or
> reconfigured.
>
> What is your opinion? I'm being shouted down, but I
> think I'm right.
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