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May 24, 2013, 4:58am


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The Apostrophe Protection Society Forum

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To start a New Thread about apostrophe use or abuse CLICK HERE

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Topic Summary
Posted by whoisit on May 4, 2012, 1:48pm
Hi Again
Every month we have a list of people who Did Not Attend and we print out, for example, DNA's 96. Is the apostrophe right for a contraction of the word Attends?
Or should it just be DNAs 96

Thanks for looking
Posted by hubertus on May 4, 2012, 6:15pm
Plural words simply take s with no apostrophe: DNAs.
It's not a contraction, it's an abbrieviation.

Convention has it that we don't use the apostrophe for abbrieviations. Also, the full stop between abbrieviations has gone out of favour. For instance, the former P.T.O., e.g. and so on. Hence no D.N.A.
Posted by Tone on May 4, 2012, 8:52pm
Were you back in the 1960's (like that) you would be quite "normal" to use the apostrophe.

Now, in the 2110s, you would be either out-of-date (like me), or judged to be "wrong" by many ordinary people as well as the APS "official line".

Tone
Posted by John (Forum Admin) on May 5, 2012, 12:27am

May 4, 2012, 6:15pm, hubertus wrote:
Also, the full stop between abbrieviations has gone out of favour. For instance, the former P.T.O., e.g. and so on. Hence no D.N.A.

I worked for BBC Television in London for 31 years and at the start of my time there in 1964 all the B.B.C. vehicles had very prominent full stops after each letter as shown here. They were everywhere within the Corporation - and even appeared on the first transmitted Test Cards as "B.B.C. Television Service".
See here: http://txlib.mb21.co.uk/main.php?g2_itemId=750

I think the cut-backs killed them off!
Posted by Dave on May 5, 2012, 2:35am
Saving ink? ??? ;D
Posted by John (Forum Admin) on May 5, 2012, 6:51pm

May 5, 2012, 2:35am, Dave wrote:
Saving ink? ??? ;D

Yep! Think so.
At the same time they stopped printing "Property of the B.B.C." on every sheet of [hard] toilet paper! ;D ::)
Posted by Tone on May 5, 2012, 8:28pm
>I worked for BBC Television in London for 31 years and at the start of my time there in 1964 all the B.B.C. vehicles had very prominent full stops <

I was with G.E.C. / G E C in the '60s and they changed it from G.E.C. to the dotless version. It was said that Arnold (Weinstock) had decreed it.

But I've still got (somewhere) an original plastic logo badge with the dots thereon.

Tone
Posted by whoisit on May 6, 2012, 10:07am
Thanks everyone for the informative and humorous replies I guess from now on it's DNAs


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