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

 

[CajunCenturion]

So are you saying that RPM is not a ratio?
Are you still claiming that measurements do not become plural?

Further, I would point out at 'ms', as used in your previous post, is neither an acronym or intialism, but rather, simply an abbreviation.
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[ESquared]

No, it was just a simple point that units of measure, in general, when in abbreviated form, are not expressed as plurals.

Acronyms and initialisms are forms of abbreviation. They generally have their own rules. It appears though, that conventions of abbreviated measure supercede the generic conventions of initialisms.

I did not say that revolutions per minute is not a ratio. Where did you get that idea? (I agree it's plural when spelled out, like other UOMs!) But that part is not really important to me. It is primarily a unit of measure. It certainly is usually expressed as a ratio between two other units of measure, but is no less a unit of measure in its own right.

Look at other common units of measure that are ratios:
1 joule = 1 kg [·] m² / s²
1 hp = 5.36 g / MJ

And hp, if I did it right, also works out to something like 5.36 [·] 10^-9 [·] s² / m²

Other units can legitimately be expressed in strange ways, too. If mpg was defined with a term that did not imply our usual understanding of ratio-ness (rationality?) such as deplete, we could say that:

1 de = 1 mi / gallon
1 de [·] gallon = 1 mi
1 gallon = 1 mi / de
1 gallon = 1 mpd

My car gets about 23 depletes so when I fill the tank with 16 mpd, I can go about 368 miles before refueling!

Another interesting one could be if mph was labelled as an amble:
1 mi = 1 amble [·] hr = one amble-hour.

If it seems strange to express a distance in terms of speed, well, the meter is legally defined in terms of the speed of light. Speed need not be a ratio, and length can be expressed in terms of two other units:

1 c = 299792458 m / s
299792458 m = 1 c [·] s (literally, speed-of-light seconds, commonly known as as light seconds)
1 m = c [·] s / 299792458 or approx. 0.0000000033564095 light seconds

See Google on 1 meter in light seconds

So I don't see any useful distinction between ratios and other units of measure.

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> Acronyms and initialisms are forms of abbreviation. They generally have their own rules.
That's not really true. Acronyms and initialisms are forms of abbreviation designed to be treated as words so that the follow the same rules as other words. And that's the whole point of this thread -- how the form the plurals of acronyms.

==> It appears though, that conventions of abbreviated measure supercede the generic conventions of initialisms.
We'll just have to agree to disagree on that point.

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[ESquared]

So you would write 50,000 RPMs then?

 

[CajunCenturion]

That question has already been answered within this thread. Please read my post of 29 Apr 07 7:08

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[ESquared]

John,

Oh I see your distinction now. I missed it before. Let me think about it...

Actually, I don't agree that

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

because 1 rpm is not plural. So RPM doesn't necessarily, any more than WMD, represent a noun already understood to be plural. It is the very fact that there is a case where the item is not plural that is under discussion! Both WMD and RPM have a case where they are not plural. What do we do with them? Something different.

So I'll repeat my conjecture that abbreviations of units of measure have overriding rules about plurals that cover any acronyms or initialisms which also happen to be UOMs. If WMD ever expresses something that can be fractional, that would be sufficient proof that it had passed into UOM territory, ala 2.4 wmd.

Erik

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> So I'll repeat my conjecture that abbreviations of units of measure have overriding rules about plurals that cover any acronyms or initialisms which also happen to be UOMs.
We're not talking about unit measure abbreviations. We're talking about acronyms and initialisms. The fundamental difference is that an acronym/initialism is treated as a standalone word unit. An abbreviation is not.

So no, there are no overriding rules. There are no conventions superseding any rules. If what you're talking about is an acronym/initialism, then it's treated as a stand-alone word, and therefore subject to all the same plural and possessive rules that apply to words. If you're talking about a simple abbreviation, then it's not a word, and therefore not subject the standard word plural and possessive rules.

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[ESquared]

Is not RPM both an abbreviation and an initialism?

And are not intialisms and acronyms a form of abbreviation?

 

[pinkgecko]

Just a few references to chew on:

http://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/labbrev.htm

3.1 says that either WMDs or WMD's would be correct (it uses the example SUS's, or Soldiers Under Sentence)

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=499296

This one is interesting because it uses MPs as an example (Military Police), where when the word is not abbreviated, it would be the same term (Military Police can be one or many, but a single would generally be Military Policeman I think)



[blue]Never listen to your customers. They were dumb enough to buy your product, so they have no credibility. - Dogbert[/blue]

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> Is not RPM both an abbreviation and an initialism?
Yes, but lexically, the initialism is treated as a word, but the abbreviation is not.

==> And are not intialisms and acronyms a form of abbreviation?
Again yes, but also again, lexically, initialisms and acronyms are teated as words, whereas simple abbreviations are not.

Thanks for the references pinkgecho. I can understand using the apostrophe in SUS's because of the double 's', but personally, I don't see a need for an apostrophe for WMDs. I hope that everyone also reads carefully the big red box right under 3.1: Avoid The Version With An Apostrophe.

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[SantaMufasa]

...acronyms are teated as words

Is that a boob-oo?

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

 

[pinkgecko]

SM, that was a groaner...

Most sites I looked at do discourage use of the apostrophe, but said to use an s to pluralize anything.

[blue]Never listen to your customers. They were dumb enough to buy your product, so they have no credibility. - Dogbert[/blue]

 

[CajunCenturion]

Clearly an improper udder-ance.


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[SantaMufasa]

HeHeHe...

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

 

[AnotherHiggins]

Please, guys. Let's stay on topic.

Keep the thread mooooooving.

[tt]_____
[blue]-John[/blue][/tt]
[tab][red]The plural of anecdote is not data[/red]

Help us help you. Please read FAQ181-2886 before posting.

 

[Lunatic]

teated words, boob-oos, sm & groans... when a thread goes off-topic it goes far off.

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Have a problem with my spelling or grammar? Please refer all complaints to my English teacher:
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[ESquared]

CC,

We're going in circles. I'm dizzy. Frustrated, but stopping I am.

 

[SantaMufasa]

We definitely have GPS devices to show us how to get "out into the weeds," don't we?

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

 

[CajunCenturion]

We're going in circles. I'm dizzy. Frustrated, but stopping I am.

Might I suggest that you look into some other resources, such as the one that I referenced in my post of 26 Apr 07 9:02.



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