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Mike 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.
Thomas Quine answered:
> 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."
I don't think making a special case for
acronyms ending with "ess" is desirable
or helpful. Better to avoid the mess altogether.
"I couldn't tell x from y" seems to convey the
jest (?) adequately.
And when would "SOS" need to be baldly
pluralized? Why not "distress calls"?
I think inventing special cases is a mug's game.
Soon you're joining ranks with the greengrocers
of the world -- or perhaps I should say
greengrocers' sign-painters:
"Tomato's on special"
"Avocado's one dollar"
--
Michael West
Melbourne, Australia
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