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submitted 4 weeks ago by Schal330@lemmy.world to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev

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[-] Beanie@programming.dev 48 points 4 weeks ago

That's half-right. Upper-case letters aren't pluralised with apostrophes but lower-case letters are. (So the plural of 'R' is 'Rs' but the plural of 'r' is 'r's'.) With numbers (written as '123') it's optional - IIRC, it's more popular in Britain to pluralise with apostrophes and more popular in America to pluralise without. (And of course numbers written as words are never pluralised with apostrophes.) Acronyms are indeed not pluralised with apostrophes if they're written in all caps. I'm not sure what you mean by decades.

[-] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 18 points 4 weeks ago

By decades they meant "the 1970s" or "the 60s"

I don't know if we can rely on British popularity, given y'all's prevalence of the "greengrocer's apostrophe."

[-] ProfessorProteus@lemmy.world 18 points 4 weeks ago

Never heard of the greengrocer's apostrophe so I looked it up. https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-greengrocers-apostrophe-1690826

I absolutely love that there's a group called the Apostrophe Protection Society. Is there something like that for the Oxford Comma? I'd gladly join them!

[-] Beanie@programming.dev 2 points 3 weeks ago

Hah, I do not like the greengrocer's apostrophe. It is just wrong no matter how you look at it. The Oxford comma is a little different - it's not technically wrong, but it should only be used to avoid confusion.