| Author |
Message |
Guest
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 4:59 am
Post subject: Re: '60s or 60's ? |
|
|
"PCS".
Am I talking about the plural of 'personal computer" or about "personal
communications systems" authorized by the FCC to transmit on certain
radio frequencies?
"PCs"
Am I talking about the plural of "personal computer" or am I talking
about "personal communications systems" and simply forgot to capitalize
the last s?
"PC's"
Am I talking about the plural of "personal computer" or about "personal
communications systems"?
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Raymond S. Wise
Guest
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 6:59 am
Post subject: Re: '60s or 60's ? |
|
|
<c28k@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:28674-41589B60-276@storefull-3118.bay.webtv.net...
| Quote: | "PCS".
Am I talking about the plural of 'personal computer" or about "personal
communications systems" authorized by the FCC to transmit on certain
radio frequencies?
|
"Personal communications systems." The only time <PCS> might mean "personal
computers" is on a sign for which no capital letters are available. (Here in
the US, many sign systems with removable plastic letters use only capital
letters.) In such cases, it is preferable to use the plural which is made
with an apostrophe: <PC'S>.
| Quote: |
"PCs"
Am I talking about the plural of "personal computer" or am I talking
about "personal communications systems" and simply forgot to capitalize
the last s?
|
It would never occur to anybody seeing <PCs>--not to any native speaker of
English, that is--that it might be the acronym <PCS>, so <PCs> unambiguously
means "personal computers."
| Quote: |
"PC's"
Am I talking about the plural of "personal computer" or about "personal
communications systems"?
|
<PC's> would never be confused with <PCS>.
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
meirman
Guest
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 9:23 am
Post subject: Re: '60s or 60's ? |
|
|
In alt.english.usage on Mon, 27 Sep 2004 14:33:26 -0500 "Raymond S.
Wise" <mplsrayNOSPAM@gbronline.com> posted:
| Quote: | c28k@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:29042-41585EF8-238@storefull-3114.bay.webtv.net...
I'm not saying 60's and 70's is correct or incorrect. However, I
picked up the habit from somewhere, and the most likely place that I
picked it up from is school, so I must have been taught in school that
that was the correct way to write those terms and plurals of acronymns.
Yes, that has been discussed before in this newsgroup. Americans of at least
my age (I'm 50) and older were taught that method as the correct way to
write the plurals of numbers, letters, and acronyms.
|
Yes, I'm sure that's true.
4's, A's, and ICBM's (an example from the 50's.) ICBMs looks like
some very complicated initialism, where some letters deserve to be
capitalized and one doesn't. Like pH.
s/ meirman If you are emailing me please
say if you are posting the same response.
Born west of Pittsburgh Pa. 10 years
Indianapolis, 7 years
Chicago, 6 years
Brooklyn NY 12 years
Baltimore 20 years
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Raymond S. Wise
Guest
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 10:32 am
Post subject: Odd initialisms [Was: '60s or 60's ?] |
|
|
"meirman" <meirman@invalid.com> wrote in message
news:c5mhl0p3n4ej7eonubiprh2i8gddff0ieu@4ax.com...
| Quote: | In alt.english.usage on Mon, 27 Sep 2004 14:33:26 -0500 "Raymond S.
Wise" <mplsrayNOSPAM@gbronline.com> posted:
c28k@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:29042-41585EF8-238@storefull-3114.bay.webtv.net...
I'm not saying 60's and 70's is correct or incorrect. However, I
picked up the habit from somewhere, and the most likely place that I
picked it up from is school, so I must have been taught in school that
that was the correct way to write those terms and plurals of acronymns.
Yes, that has been discussed before in this newsgroup. Americans of at
least
my age (I'm 50) and older were taught that method as the correct way to
write the plurals of numbers, letters, and acronyms.
Yes, I'm sure that's true.
4's, A's, and ICBM's (an example from the 50's.) ICBMs looks like
some very complicated initialism, where some letters deserve to be
capitalized and one doesn't. Like pH.
|
Odd initialisms:
<CHiPs>. This is the name of a television show, and is based upon the
acronym for the California Highway Patrol, <CHP>, http://www.chp.ca.gov . I
take it that <CHiPs> is a pronunciation spelling for that acronym when used
in a plural form.
<TLFi>. This stands for the online version of a French Dictionary, <Le
Trésor de la Langue Française informatisé>. (
http://atilf.atilf.fr/tlf.htm ).
Then there's <AmE> and <BrE> for <American English> and <British English>,
which forms we sometimes use in this newsgroup.
That's all that occur to me at the moment. I would predict that most such
initialisms would have been created to market something (which was likely on
the minds of the people who used <CHiPs> for the TV show and <TLFi> for the
dictionary), the idea being that it is something "new and different." The
same impulse leads to such things as the <iPod> and <iTunes>, <eMachine
eTower>, and the unconventional use of accents in such names as
<Häagen-Dazs> and <Yoplait Exprèsse>.
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Peter Duncanson
Guest
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 5:41 pm
Post subject: Re: Odd initialisms [Was: '60s or 60's ?] |
|
|
On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 23:32:21 -0500, "Raymond S. Wise"
<mplsrayNOSPAM@gbronline.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
That's all that occur to me at the moment. I would predict that most such
initialisms would have been created to market something (which was likely on
the minds of the people who used <CHiPs> for the TV show and <TLFi> for the
dictionary), the idea being that it is something "new and different." The
same impulse leads to such things as the <iPod> and <iTunes>, <eMachine
eTower>, and the unconventional use of accents in such names as
Häagen-Dazs> and <Yoplait Exprèsse>.
|
I suspect that these distinctive forms are trademarkable in a way that the
conventional spellings are not.
--
Peter Duncanson
UK (posting from a.e.u) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Daniel James
Guest
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 8:04 pm
Post subject: Re: '60s or 60's ? |
|
|
In article news:<WkP5d.93842$U04.2198@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk>, Alan Jones
wrote:
| Quote: | The rule in printed BrE now seems to be to avoid the apostrophe as a
plural marker: MPs, CDs and DVDs, etc.
|
Agreed.
| Quote: | This accords with the abandoning of stops for abbreviations (BBC, PhD,
etc), and of almost all punctuation in addresses and in written-out
dates (27 September 2004).
|
Interesting use of "accord" -- I assume that's the "harmonious
correspondence" definition rather than "(formal act of) reconciliation"?
IOW I do see a tendency to drop unecessary clutter in all these things --
which is good: abbreviations are made in order to shorten otherwise
cumbersome terms, so why make them longer than they have to be?
I don't think there's any correspondence between them except that thay are
all abbreviations that have benefitted (or suffered, I'd say, in the case of
dates and addresses) from the same tendency to omit punctuation.
[I stubbornly persist in punctuating addresses - even in letter headings -
and would write 27th September 2004 (with the "th" in a superscript typeface
if one were available).]
| Quote: | "How many s's in Mississippi?"
|
"How many 's's in Mississippi?" or "How many <italic>s</italic>s in
Mississippi?".
| Quote: | ... I think that the newish principles will eventually become general
since they are seen in almost every business or governmental letter
and publication, and are, I believe, taught in secretarial schools.
|
Secretaries are taught a style that is supposed to be quick to type,
regardless of any stylistic merit it may (and usually doesn't) have.
Nowadays secretaries use wordprocessors rather than typewriters and all the
punctuation that they have been taught to omit in the name of efficiency
could be inserted automatically, so there is no good reason for it (or those
parts of it that may be thought to be helpful to the reader or pleasing to
the eye) to be omitted from the printed page.
| Quote: | On the point at issue, I'd write "in the 1960s" or "in the '60s"; there
seems some merit in distinguishing "the '60s" as an era and "the 60s" as a
decade in one's life (though, as it happens, for my late father they would
have been the same).
|
Ah, a man in his 60s in the '60s. Yes, I agree.
Cheers,
Daniel. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Daniel James
Guest
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 8:04 pm
Post subject: Re: '60s or 60's ? |
|
|
In article news:<29042-41585736-232@storefull-3114.bay.webtv.net>,
wrote: (quoting standarized)
| Quote: | [I wrote]
Both "He is in his 60s" and "I'm buying some CDs" are perfectly
clear as they stand.
that is not clear to me. Based on a real-life example I had.
do you mean you are buying CDs (compact discs) or do you mean you are
buying CDs (certificates of deposit)? Both are commonly called "CDs'
|
From context.
... but it doesn't matter. Both are examples of things individually
called a "CD" and each can properly be represented in the plural by the
fom "CDs". In each case the form "CD's" contains an apostrophe that
serves no useful purpose (and worse, is misleadingly suggestive of a
possessive) which would be better left out.
Are you suggesting that one should be "CDs" and the other should be
"CD's"? If so, how is anyone supposed to know which is which? What would
you do when confromted with a third kind of thing called a "CD"?
Cheers,
Daniel. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| |
FAQ
Memberlist
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in