[Grammar/poll] Quick check ...

[dancefloorlandmine]

Should the plural of an acronym have an apostrophe?

[Poll #1217630]

I know what the Times and Oxford style guides say, but I was wondering about the opinions of my readership on the wonderful wibbly wobbly world wide web.

Comments

[mister-jack.livejournal.com]

The imposition of superfluous apostrophes must be stopped before they bring down our civilisation! Protect the purity of the mother tongue!

[hungry-pixel.livejournal.com]

I'd only use an apostrophe for that if it's indicating possession. As in (hypothetically) - "the GCSE's invigilators". That's a bad eggsample (sorry, the ecks key is buggered on this keyboard; I'm working around it!) but you get the picture.

[hazyjayne.livejournal.com]

NO! NO! and NO!

An apostrophe should only be used to denote possession e.g. "The boy's shoe", or shortening "is" e.g. " it's instead of it is".

Apprentally there is an Apostrophe Protection Society.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

No, absolutely not. And if writing in uppercase the s should drop to lower case, e.g.

ALL BOYS CRAP AT GCSEs, SAY RESEARCHERS

not


ALL BOYS CRAP AT GCSE'S, SAY RESEARCHERS

[trampledamage.livejournal.com]

To answer your question - no.

I have another question - is GCSE an acronym? Is it still an acronym if you don't pronounce it as a word?

[vin_petrol]

I believe it *used* to be the case that the apostrophe should be used, and it has fallen out of favour in the last few decades. I have a very hazy memory of being taught to use it in the 1970s.

If you watch Gerry Anderson's "UFO", the teleprinter at the start does contain something like "SEARCHING FOR UFO'S IN EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE." I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be an error, so it was considered reasonable usage in 1972.

It certainly isn't *now* though. It gives greengrocer's an excuse ;-)

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I follow style guides that use minimal dottage, but as the E is short for Examination I'd see the apostrophe as old-fashioned rather than wrong.

[kathbad]

Depends on context,

"More people are taking GCSEs this year" has no apostrophe.

"There is much discussion about the difficulty levels of the GCSEs' these days" does.

Unless I am wrong.

To hell with the damn' things

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

The secondary usage of an apostrophe is to indicate shortening or, more precisely, dropped letters.

As such, it's arguable that an apostrophe should be appended to all acronyms. However, this isn't customary practice in recent English usage and, as the use of acronyms is in and of itself a lowering of standards in pursuit of brevity, our overriding need in such a case is that of clarity.

Would the grammar pedants out there care to tell me how the plural 's' is to be distinguished from the constituent letters of the plurally-enumerated acronym?

So tell me please, how am I to know whether I have been invoiced for three Contracts for Difference or three Credit Default Swaps unless I can be certain that the plural will be three CD's or CDS's?

Note that upper- and lower case are not a perfect guide: not all acronyms are spelt out in their entirety in capitals.

[skibbley.livejournal.com]

No, but I think they are not too bad since there are letters missing between the E and the s. bis looks like a different word and pronunciation compared to bi's. CAPITALs looks better to me than lowers.

[deviblue.livejournal.com]

should acronyms even have plurals?

if you think about it the whole point is to only take the first letter...so the s, apostrophe or not, would be cut off anyway?

[jhg.livejournal.com]

NO!

A bit of dissent

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Chicago Manual of Style argues that apostrophes are OK if they are needed for disambiguation. I'd write "Most bi's don't attend BiCon" because if you start with "Most bis don't..." it doesn't read properly.

[ephemera.livejournal.com]

no, there should be no rogue 's, but I still, invariably, type DVD's and then have to backspace and correct ...