Apostrophes in Acronyms????

[angelize]

I am in agreement with John on this one, for the most part, how ever an apostrophe can be used to show possession if the name ends with an s for example "Frances' book" although really the apostrophe is still indicating a missing character, an extra s.

Edit: a Google search just turned up this:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe Apparently both possession and representing missing characters are correct usages.

edit again: we seem to be cross posting

[Soquili]

Yes the apostrophe is used in place of a missing character (a space is a character ) or characters which forms a type of contraction.

[zaphodeist]

Which shows the practice has its origin in printing, rather than the hand-written word.

[Rik]

Some for you to chuckle over.

The misuse of the apostrophe is something that gets a lot of people going and there are some learned people who would like to do away with the apostrophe. I'm not one of them, by the way. Maybe that's because I'm not learned?!

[AntonyF]

Oh don't start me on apostrophes! I love topics like this.

I saw a sign recently with:

Panini's
Rolls

And I'm not even sure what form of language says that one bread product has an apostrophe while the other doesn't.

[iamtheblues]

...I saw a sign recently with:

Panini's
Rolls....

Anthony, you have hit the nail on the head here. I understand that for some the apostrophe is a minefield and that mistakes do occur, but for me it is the inconsistency in their application that truly annoys me. Virtually any word ending in an "s" is a target for the random apostrophe. Sometimes it is even worse. Has anybody come across this? - don,t. Aaaargh!!
Bob.

[AntonyF]

Over here I see it referred to a lot as "the greengrocer's apostrophe", becuase it happens a lot with pear's and the like and clearly they want to say greengrocers are dimwitted.

But I like to call it the Tesco apostrophe. If a multi billion pound company can't pay someone to just check their spelling and grammar, what example is being set to the public at large?

[Rik]

Yup!
It's very sad when big organisations can't even get it right.

[AntonyF]

I just pronounce it like I read it.

Mens section becomes "Mense section".

[Rik]

And, someone who knows exactly what they're doing.
Clever.