|
|
Am 06.07.2015 um 14:42 schrieb scott:
>> I had to change PCs, and thus had to reinstall POV.
>>
>> At the end of the install, it asks if we want to install the editor
>> "DLL's" and sends us to the POV site where we can download the "DLL's"
>>
>> Excpet plurals don't use apostrophes. It should be "DLLs".
>
> Except not always. DLL's is acceptable, DLLs is also ok, as is the fact
> that there are too many e's in this sentence, or that so many 6's come
> up when I roll dice.
>
> Usually you'd use an apostrophe for an acronym plurar to avoid any
> possible ambiguity (eg if "DLLS" was an equally valid acronym, you
> wouldn't write DLLs for a plural). In this case though I don't think it
> matters.
The use of apostrophes for plural of both all-caps and all-digits
"words" to avoid ambiguity seems to have been common teaching some
decades ago (to my surprise; maybe it was an American thing), but
according to Oxford Dictionaries (not to be confused with the OED, from
which I couldn't find an answer) nowadays it is being strongly discouraged:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/apostrophe
It might have had to do with old information technology where lowercase
letters were not always available. (Telegraphy, anyone?)
Post a reply to this message
|
|