Ben Bacarisse <> writes:
> Tim Rentsch <> writes:
>
>> Ben Bacarisse <> writes:
[snip]
>>
>>> The "Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style" does not include
>>> this use of the apostrophe. The only use of an apostrophe for plurals
>>> is its use "to mark the plural of an acronym, number, or letter".
>>
>> All of these more or less correspond to the principle I am trying
>> to convey here - a word-as-word, or keyword, is treated as if it
>> were a single ideogram.
>
> Right. But I cut the quote off. It goes on to say that it's now more
> usual to drop the apostrophe (except for letters).
That is good to know. Thank you.
>>> Fowler does not mention it.
>>
>> You definitely outclass me in knowledge of matters style.
>>
>> However, I didn't learn much from this statement, without
>> knowing what else Fowler might have to say about usage
>> when writing about words as text. I suppose I should
>> spend some time reading Fowler now for my own further
>> education if nothing else.
>
> Turns out I was wrong, so no "outclassing" is possible. The apostrophe
> for some plurals *is* mentioned, but in a section on possessives:
>
> mps, the 1990s, etc. The apostrophe is no longer normally used in the
> plural of abbreviated forms (e.g. Several MPs were standing around),
> although it is of course used in the possessive (e.g. The BBC's
> decision to go ahead with the broadcast). It is used in plurals when
> clarity calls for it, e.g. Dot your i's and cross your t's.
>
> That's all. Much the same as the other advice, and nothing specifically
> about textual references.
For me that last quoted sentence is key, because the motivation
for using an apostrophe in the first place was clarity, ie, to
distinguish between a word used in its normal English sense and
the same "word" but used with a different, technical meaning.
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