How do you make plural out of acronyms or non-words?

Question

What is the correct plural of the word 'x'?
1) xs
2) x's
3) xes
4) Something else?

What is the correct plural of the word 'URL'?
1) URLs
2) URL's
3) URLes
4) Something else?

Answer 1

At first I thought that Possum was correct and I gave him a thumbs up. But as it turns out,

2 is correct for the first one and 1 is correct for the second one. Here is a website that explains it well: http://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/apostrophes_show_plural_of_abbreviations.htm



So a person might say "two and's were found in the paragraph" and be correct, because the writer has the option to use the apostrophe to assist the reader where the context makes it evident that it is not possessive.

Seriously you would not think "URL's domain name" was not possessive given that context. A noun coming after a plural noun without a comma? I'm at a loss to come up with an example. Of course just because I can't think of one doesn't mean it doesn't exist. ;)

Answer 2

When it comes to all capital letters, I use a small "s," for example, for Near Death Experience, "NDEs"



I'd like to say that when I am writing something that I want to be sure I'm correct about, there are a lot of websites dedicated to correct English. I would post something like a plain English question: Is it "NDEs" or "NDE's?" And if that doesn't work, I'll try some other form of putting the question.



You are much more likely to get reliable answers doing it that way. YA is only about people's opinions. Sure you may get an expert answering your question, but a lot of the time, you will get non-experts talking as if they are experts. Maybe I'll Google this NDE plural question and get back to you.

Answer 3

My best guess (going off what's already gone on in this thread) would be the plural of x is 'x's and of URL is URLs

Answer 4

You add 's, so answer 2 is correct for both questions.