You don't use apostophe's to plauralise anything.

tjh said:
As an old FORTRAN programmer, the effect of your advice was to affect how I advise .... oh well, best to drop this topic and discuss something really important, like if the Leica M10 will have a built-in beer tap and, if not, will interchangeable taps be available as an option.
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The only tap available will be one that drains one's bank account!
 
I wish I hadn't started this thread, I should have done a thread noting that the emoticons aren't right for the board (anti-aliased for white) and then mentioned this at the end.

DamenS said:
Yes, this part of your statement is correct. Acronyms/abbreviations use an apostrophe prior to the "s" in order to denote the plural form - or maybe they don't ... Im just thanking God I didn't use the word "connote" rather than denote, eh, might had had us all choking on our breakfast muffins !!



Roger Hicks's camera would be the accepted convention, though I personally believe Roger Hicks' camera would also be acceptable, but ah pity da fool who shortchanges your name an "s" by writing Roger Hick's camera !!
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I'd put "James' camera", but I'd also write it as Chris's camera for a name like Chris.
 
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Well, if you had asked about using apostrophes in FORTRAN, we would have a definitive answer.

But- I think most everyone here had a light-hearted view of this thread, and several laughs.

I could not find a Backus-Naur Form for the English language. I did try to find one on the web. I knew that at least one was done many years ago. BNF would have explained it all.
 
OK, how do you pronounce the acronym "RF" as a word? I can say that well known acronym "NATO" as a word, which is the test, but "RF" is just a plain old-fashioned abbreviation.

Regards, David
 
It is pronounced "RF", ask any dog.

There are many acronyms that just get "spelled" out. At a meeting in the early 90's about optical networks, some one used the acronyms "SAR" and "ATM". "SAR" was pronouced as "sor" as in sorry, and "ATM" was just "A-T-M". I looked at him and asked "Why are we discussing putting synthetic aperture RADAR on an automatic teller machine?"

After that, no more TLA's at the meeting. So- many "TLA", just the letters get spelled out, like "R-F".
 
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David Hughes said:
OK, how do you pronounce the acronym "RF" as a word? I can say that well known acronym "NATO" as a word, which is the test, but "RF" is just a plain old-fashioned abbreviation.

Regards, David
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In my opinion it's an initialism that's been mistakenly issued to single word, thought to be two words.
 
Brian Sweeney said:
It is pronounced "RF", ask any dog.
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Well, I dunno. Our dog is clever enough to be able to bark in French, German (Low & High) and Welsh but that stumped him. But you should have seen the way he rolled his eyes and looked up at the ceiling when he read your post...

Regards, David
 
I wish I hadn't started a thread on this, although I like the fact that even though I pointed out the error they didn't correct it.
 
I've been up all night reading the entire archive of RFF threads and individual posts.

Not once did incorrect use of an apostrophe cause me to misinterpret a post or its meaning. :D
 
Being American and of a certain age I have no idea how to use punctuation or grammar. I do read a lot, but never have managed to get any of that sorted out as to right & wrong.
 
Here's my favourite joke on punctuation:

A panda walks into a bar. He orders a sandwich, eats it, orders the bill, and as the waiter brings it to him he draws a gun and calmly shoots the waiter. Then he slowly gets up and turns to leave.

"Why?" asks the barman, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda", he says, at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. "Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."
 
Hi,

Just read the thread again. Then picked up my copy of "Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press Oxford" and found this rule at the first page I looked at:-

"3. Do not use an apostrophe in - Golders Green, Bury St. Edmunds ... "

So I guess that not only are there rules for different countries but also for different towns.

Regards, David

PS Here's some free ones to insert as necessary ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''.
 
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