Apostrophe's (was: Re: Mandrake 10 was [plug] MDK users was: MP3 ripper or some other software to copy cd's to my HDD)

[Bret Busby]

On Fri, 25 Jun 2004, Cameron Patrick wrote:

> 
> James Devenish wrote:
> 
> | I think the only notable correction is that there's no apostrophe
> | within "CDs". (I know neither who started writing "CD's" nor why
> | people copied it.)
> 
> I can vaguely see why people would do it -- one use of apostrophes is
> for contraction, and CDs is an abbreviation.
> 
> 

Are you sure?

Is the term "CD", an abbreviation, or an acronym?

Is an abbreviation not a shortening of a word, but not to the extent of 
retaining only the intital and running the intials of a term together?

So, is TIA an abbreviation or an acronym? Likewise, with ICANN (as 
opposed to Ican't, which is definitely an abbreviation), IANA, GNU, 
OSF, etc (now, "etc" IS an abbreviation,and not an acronym...).

-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
  Chapter 28 of 
  "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
  A Trilogy In Four Parts",
  written by Douglas Adams, 
  published by Pan Books, 1992 
....................................................