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Unusual Plurals of Abbreviations

Thanks to Lawrence K., who responded to my tip on forming plurals of symbols by pointing out that the plurals of some abbreviations are formed in ways other than by adding an s.

Example: pp. = pages

Example: sp. = species (singular); spp. = species (plural)

Example: cc., c.c., C.C., Cc, or cc = copy/copies or carbon copy/copies

Interesting Note: The original meaning of cc was carbon copy. Before photocopiers and computer printers, to make one or more copies of a document, carbon paper was placed between sheets of typewriter paper. Back then, as is the case today, the abbreviation was placed at the end of the document, followed by a colon and the name/location where the copy was sent. Fast forward some years…of course, your e-mail program has this feature, allowing you to send e-mails to any number of people.

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Posted on Tuesday, February 16th, 2010, at 9:14 am

Forming the Plurals of Numbers, Letters, and Abbreviations

Rule: The plurals for capital letters and numbers used as nouns are not formed with apostrophes.

Example: She consulted with three M.D.s. BUT
Example: She went to three M.D.s’ offices.
The apostrophe is needed here to show plural possessive.

Example: She learned her ABCs.
Example: the 1990s, not the 1990′s
Example: the ’90s or the mid-’70s, not the ’90′s or the mid-’70′s
Example: She learned her times tables for 6s and 7s.

Exception: Use apostrophes with capital letters and numbers when the meaning would be unclear otherwise.
Example: Please dot your I’s.
You don’t mean Is.
Example: Ted couldn’t distinguish between her 6′s and 0′s.
You don’t mean Os.

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Posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008, at 8:31 pm

Abbreviations vs. Acronyms vs. Initialisms

Dictionaries don’t all agree on the definitions of these words and neither do style manuals. So I will attempt to shed more light on the distinctions.
Abbreviations
According to Dictionary.com, an abbreviation is a shortened or contracted form of a word or phrase, used to represent the whole, as Dr. for Doctor, U.S. for United States, lb. for pound.

Initialisms and acronyms are two types of abbreviations that are used to shorten phrases.

Initialisms are abbreviations that are pronounced one letter at a time.
Examples:
- FBI
- HTML
- IBM
- DVD
- BTW (by the way)
Note that most people would simply call these abbreviations, which is fine.

Acronyms are abbreviations that are pronounced as words.

Examples:
- NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)
- AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)
- OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries)
- SPA (Society of Professional Accountants)
- WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant)
- ASAP (as soon as possible)
- Radar (radio detecting and ranging)
- Scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus)

Do you ever wonder about the origin of a word or when it came to be a common part of the language? According to Ask.com, the word acronym originated in 1943: “As wartime production of names using initials reached an all-time high, it was high time to give a name to the growing arsenal of alphabetic abbreviations. That need was met in a note in the February 1943 issue of American Notes and Queries: ‘Your correspondent who asks about words made up of the initial letters or syllables of other words may be interested in knowing that I have seen such words called by the name acronym, which is useful, and clear to anyone who knows a little Greek.’”
“Greek? Yes, acronym follows the model of other designations for types of words, like synonym, antonym, and homonym. The -nym means “a kind of word”; acro- means “top, peak, or initial,” as in acrobat or acrophobia.

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Posted on Monday, March 17th, 2008, at 10:06 pm