WMD or WMD's?

[herkiefan]

I saw an interesting bumper sticker the other day.

"Where are the WMD?"

I assume the acronym stands for Weapons of Mass Destruction, yet in our current pop-news culture we are used to seeing the plural form as WMD's not WMD.

It sounds wierd to me.

My question is this: If an acronym can stand for both the plural and singular version of the noun, what is the best way to use it in the above bumper sticker?

Should it be:
a. Where are the WMD?
b. Where is the WMD?
c. Wehre are teh WMD's?

Does it matter, or did the person buy a bumper sticker that was written incorrectly.

Mike


PS> This is not intended to incite a political debate.

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.”-Albert Einstein

 

[Olaf Doschke]

we pronounce it "double-you-em-dee". Therefore, "WMD" is ... an initialisation.

True, and therefore you can say "Where are the WMD?".

BMW is also an initialisation and it stands for "Bayerische Moteren Werke" which you may translate to bavarian motor factories. It's in plural, nevertheless BMW is also taken as a singular for a BMW car. So in fact you can write both "Where are the BMW?" which would be asking where the factory is or "Where are the BMWs?" which would be asking where BMW cars are...

The thing with WMD is of course it does not have that double meaning. But if the initialisation is a plural at least in german you must not add the plural ending.

Bye, Olaf.

 

[mjldba]

Few years ago a truck driver stepped into our office and told our clerk he had a delivery & he needed people to help him unload. We were expecting a variety of items so someone asked who the vendor was so we could assess whether we needed to send a few strong people (to unload servers) or many average size people (to unload PC's).

He looked at the paperwork and proudly announced, "It's from I-bum" ... apparently he was not familiar with IBM.

 

[Thadeus]

If the mailbox is owned by Mr. and Mrs. Smith the The Smith's is just fine by me.

~Thadeus

 

[Grenage]

Aye, especially if it's short for "The smith's house" rather than "We are the smiths".

It doesn't look pretty, so I'd probably use "The Smiths".

Carlsberg don't run I.T departments, but if they did they'd probably be more fun.

 

[flapeyre]

The Smith's house" implies that there is only one Smith, and only one house.

"The Smiths' house" is what you would use for more than one Smith residing in said house.

Tibi gratias agimus quod nihil fumas.

 

[MeGustaXL]

How about saying "Where are the double-ewes-of-em-dee?"

Like when my dog's around, I have to say "Do we have any see-aitch-oh-see?" to avoid being jumped on and licked! (by my dog, that is )

Chris

Servo vestri abbas etiam quod ego mos arcesso unguentum

 

[sha76]

[off topic]I hope that's dog see-aitch-oh-see Chris? The real stuff is poisonous to dogs.
My dad tried the spelling thing when I was a kid. Unfortunately as my mum's dyslexic both me & the dog would figure out what he was talking about before she did! [/off topic]

"Your rock is eroding wrong." -Dogbert

 

[SantaMufasa]

Yeah...I used to hate it when the kid we were "spelling around" would correct our spelling.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I provide low-cost, remote Database Administration services: www.dasages.com]

 

[sha76]

Great motivation for kids to learn to spell though!

"Your rock is eroding wrong." -Dogbert

 

[ESquared]

Is it 20,000 RPM or 20,000 RPMs?

I cringe at the second.

If you agree with me, then can anyone outline a clear reason then why it should be

1 WMD and many WMDs?

 

[Grenage]

You raise a valid point, Esquared. It should be "many WMD".

Thankfully I don't think they've found one yet, let alone many, so you may be spared the cringes.

Carlsberg don't run I.T departments, but if they did they'd probably be more fun.

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> then can anyone outline a clear reason then why it should be
Yes, I can.

Whenever an acronym, or initialism, is built, the result is a new noun in its own right. So once RPM or WMD is formed, then "RPM" is a singular noun as is "WMD", and as is the case with all regular nouns, standard pluralization and and possessive rules apply, as outlined in my first post of this thread.

If anyone cares to research this further, one source is the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language which discusses this in Chapter 19 - Lexical word formation.

http://www.cambridge.org/uk/linguistics/cgel/

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[Lunatic]

Question:

Are abbreviations that become pseudo-words (ATM, PIN, WMD, RPM, MPH) fairly new (such as the last 20 or so years), or do they have a longer history in use by a majority of people?

I ask because while ATM = Automated Teller Machine, and stating ATM Machine is redundant, it seems to me, from my limited historical viewpoint, that pseudo-words may end up with rules outside of what people are used to because they just might be a new element to language that doesn't fit well within the established rules.

Okay, I know that was a terrible run-on, incorrectly punctuated sentence, please don't me to hard on it.

***************************************
Have a problem with my spelling or grammar? Please refer all complaints to my English teacher:
Ralphy "Me fail English? That's unpossible." Wiggum

 

[CajunCenturion]

Initialisms and acronyms are relatively new linguistically, not more than a couple hundred years old.

I think the point here is that initialisms and acronyms do not become pseudo-words, but rather, they become real words that were formed through the initialism process. That process is just one of several word-forming mechanisms, and should be treated as simply another way to introduce new words into the language. As such, the words created through that process should treated the same, and subject to the same rules and usage, as any other word in the language.

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[xwb]

Sounds similar to cop - Constable On Patrol. Should we have cops for Constables On Patrol?

 

[Gooser]

Did cop really come from Constables on Patrol!?

Never knew that, if it's true.

--Gooser

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> Did cop really come from Constables on Patrol!?
Not likely. It probably comes from the verb 'to cop' which entered the language around 1700, give or take, as a slang word meaning to grab or take a hold of. The slang was then extended to policemen as a 'copper', or one who cops. In time, 'copper' was shortened to cop. It's far more likely Constable on Patrol is a 'bacronym', that is, an acronym back-formed from an existing word.

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[ESquared]

CajunCenturion,

Are you saying that RPMs is correct?

There are words in the English language that have special pluralization rules, particular to them and no others.

Consider passerby -> passersby.

Since RPM is a unit of measure, and units of measure do not become plural, and everything else I've said in this post, and because darn it I just like it this way and besides I have a foam penguin sitting on my computer speakers, I think it should be 20,000 RPM. Actually, make it lower case: 20,000 rpm.

OOH OOH! Wait! Look:

40 mpg!
Not 40 mpgs!
So it all depends on whether we say it is RPM or rpm.

40 MPGs is just silly. So is 40 MPG.

So WMDs seems correct, until it becomes a unit of measure that can have decimal places: a 4.2 wmd stockpile.

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> Since RPM is a unit of measure, and units of measure do not become plural,
You mean units of measure like inch, mile, gallon, pound, and quite a few others?
OOH OOH! Wait! Look:
inches, miles, gallons, and pounds, Oh my !!

Perhaps you mean ratios?

==> There are words in the English language that have special pluralization rules, particular to them and no others.
That's true, but I don't think it applies here. Nor do I think your example applies in this case because 'passersby' is a compound word -- not an acronym/initialism -- and compound words have their own set of pluralization rules, exceptions, and issues.

Back on topic, you can make a case that RPM and MPG are plural in their basic sense, that is they represent nouns already understood to be plural, so you would not add an 's' to them. For that reason, - that 'RPM' was already plural -- I agree that it was a bad example to use.

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[ESquared]

No I don't mean ratios. I mean units of measure.

5m
1m
50,000,000,000m

Not
5ms
1ms

whoops that looks like milliseconds doesn't it?