On Friday, April 26, 2002, at 10:55 AM, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
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> http://papyr.com/hypertextbooks/engl_126/word.htm
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more navigable than the above is the following http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/plurals.htm
which also tells us:
We use an apostrophe to create plural forms in two limited situations: for pluralized letters of the alphabet and when we are trying to create the plural form of a word that refers to the word itself. Here we also should italicize this "word as word," but not the 's ending that belongs to it. Do not use the apostrophe-s to create the plural of acronyms (pronounceable abbreviations such as LASER and IRA and URL*) and other abbreviations. (A possible exception to this last rule is an acronym that ends in "S": "We filed four NOS's in that folder.")
* Jeffrey got four A's on his last report card. * Towanda learned very quickly to mind her p's and q's. * You have fifteen and's in that last paragraph. Notice that we do not use an apostrophe -s to create the plural of a word-in-itself. For instance, we would refer to the "ins and outs" of a mystery, the "yeses and nos" of a vote (NYPL Writer's Guide to Style and Usage), and we assume that Theodore Bernstein knew what he was talking about in his book Dos, Don'ts & Maybes of English Usage. We would also write "The shortstop made two spectacular outs in that inning." But when we refer to a word-as-a-word, we first italicize it — I pointed out the use of the word out in that sentence. — and if necessary, we pluralize it by adding the unitalicized apostrophe -s — "In his essay on prepositions, Jose used an astonishing three dozen out's." This practice is not universally followed, and in newspapers, you would find our example sentence written without italics or apostrophe: "You have fifteen ands in that last paragraph."
Notice that we do not use an apostrophe to create plurals in the following: * The 1890s in Europe are widely regarded as years of social decadence. * I have prepared 1099s for the entire staff. * Rosa and her brother have identical IQs, and they both have PhDs from Harvard. * She has over 400 URLs* in her bookmark file.