Gary Kleppe writes:
"Michael Noakes" <noakes_m@hotmail.com> wrote:
<nod> The basic rules aside, there are situations where an apostrophe can
be used for showing plurial: multiples of an abbrieviation, for example:
"A swarm of UFO's decended upon the unsuspecting town."
Er... no. I don't want to belabor the point, but I'm reasonably sure
that using an apostrophe to make a plural is *always* wrong. Except when
it's also a possessive, in which case the apostrophe comes after the s:
"I've got photographs of all the UFOs' control rooms!"
Just a note. From the "American Heritage Book of English Usage", 1996:
Usage with regard to forming the plurals of letters, numbers, and
abbreviations varies somewhat. In some cases you have a choice between
adding -s or -'s, although the trend is increasingly to add -s alone:
three As or three A's; the ABCs or the ABC's; the 1900s or the 1900's;
PhDs or PhD's; several IOUs or several IOU's. With lowercase letters,
symbols, abbreviations with periods, and in cases where confusion might
arise without an apostrophe, use -'s to form the plural: p's and q's;
+'s; -'s; M.A.'s; A's and I's; 2's. Mainly your goal is to be as clear
as possible and avoid confusion.
The plural of a word being used as a word is indicated by -'s:
underline all the but's. Note that in typed or typeset copy, only the
word 'but' would appear in italics (the apostrophe and the s would be
in regular type).
The book also mentions that proper names (which started the discussion)
almost always just add the letter s - Ueharas, Sayuris. There are two main
exceptions. First, proper nouns ending in ch (soft), sh, s, ss, x, z or
zz generally add -es - the Joneses, the Keaches. For Japanese names this
obviously does not arise. Second, although proper names ending in y generally
just add -s, there are some well known exceptions - the Alleghenies, the
Ptolemies, the Rockies, the Two Sicilies. Again, not applicable to Japanese
names.
Reid Carson
rcarson@rcarson.com