Possessive with acromyms ending in S

Maybe not. I confess I explained badly, so after some consideration I'll take the liberty of making up something ACS could stand for (since you did not specify).

OK, let's pretend I'm a passionate fan of the (purely theoretical) hottie Scottish movie star Alexander Cameron, and I start a fan club, the Alex Cameron Society (ACS), here in Houston. The Alex Cameron Society's (ACS's) members wear a pin made from a scrap of the Cameron tartan and a gold star.

I find out that another girl started an Alex Cameron Society (ACS) in Los Angeles last month. So now there are two different Alex Cameron Societies (ACSs) in the United States.

I got in touch with the other girl, and we decided to pool our Cameron movie collections so that any member of either ACS could enjoy them. Now there are a dozen movies in the Alex Cameron Societies' (ACSs') merged collection.

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Just an FYI: ACS and VCR are initialisms, not acronyms. According to most dictionaries, an acronym is a pronounceable word formed from the initials of a multi-word name. A couple of examples are SCUBA, which stands for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, and AIDS, which stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

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All acronyms are initialisms, but not all initialisms are acronyms. That is why people commonly accept 'acronym' and tend to not even know what 'initialism' means. It's kind of the way everyone calls all forms of raw Japanese food 'sushi', even though sushi is really only the American invention of rolls. The other popular forms that we see are 'ngiri' and 'sashimi', and the three terms are not interchangeable (except among the uninformed).

TLA = Three-Letter Abbreviation/Acronym (my point being that it should be hyphenated; I'm not arguing the definition of the 'A').

The proper possesive form of 'Jr.' is Jr.'s. ('Sr.', therefore, becomes Sr.'s.)

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Actually, the original function of the apostrophe was to show a missing vowel, a use we still see today in contractions - 'I'm, he's, she'd' etc. As far as I understand, the reason that it is used for possessives is because it signals a missing e which used to be in the Old English genitive form, which ended in -es.

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Dear Grammar Stars,
What is the proper possesive for for the abbreviation Jr.?
Would it be Jr.'s?
I'm having a hard time finding the proper answer.
Thanks!
Jim V.

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Our animal shelter LARAS' House??? or LARAS House is an acronym for
Limestone Animal Rescue & Adoption Shelter. There is a debate among the board as to how this should read. We are trying to put up a sign and I want to do it properly but have not clue. One board member says we should use the apostrophe because it is possessive, the other says it is not necessary because it is an acronym...please help, we need the sign. Thanks Peggy W.

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Except that would mean they can't be called TLAs.

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"Initialisms are made up of the initial letters of words and are pronounced as separate letters: CIA (or C.I.A.), NYC, pm (or p.m.), US (or U.S.). Practice varies with regard to periods, with current usage increasingly in favor of omitting them, especially when the initialism consists entirely of capital letters. Acronyms are initialisms that have become words in their own right, and are pronounced as words rather than as a series of letters, for example, AIDS, laser, scuba, UNESCO. In many cases the acronym becomes the standard term and the full form is only used in explanatory contexts."

--Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2005

The fact that the initialism "TLA" misuses the term "acronym" doesn't mean that its misuse is correct, despite its ironic nature. Cole is right; "acronym" is still defined as a word formed from initials that are pronounced together as one word, and "initialism" is defined as an abbreviation formed from initials that are all pronounced separately.

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Please tell the difference between abbreviation,acronym and initials.

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http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/arch...

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Always use the lower case for the possesive and the plural at the end of initials, acronyms and numbers.
Please remember to use the apostrophe at the beginning of a contracted date.

e.g. In the '70s, ACS's profits were down. I think I will count my CDs.

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OK-several months later..... :-0

What if the last word in an initialism for a government agency is a plural word? Do you add an apostrophe only or an 's? For instance, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services initialism is 'CMS.' To show possession while using the initialism, is it proper to use CMS' or CMS's?
Thanks,
Jenn

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I don't know if this is really definitive or relevant, but consider that the S in CMS represents the first S in Services, not the pluralizing s at the end. Would that suggest that -'s is the proper ending?

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Except......TLA doesn't stand for Three Letter Acronym. It stands for Three Letter Abbreviation, which is correct. I'm not sure when the misuse began, but I have heard this term misued in formal settings.

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@Peggy Wilson: You're treating that initialism (acronym) as a name, but while this is cute, it's really not correct. Therefore, your example should very clearly be the "LARAS House" (note the prefixing "the", as well). If it was a "…Facility", it would be the "LARAF House".

And, back on the original topic: The only time an apostrophe should be used before an "s" to indicate plurality, would be if the result could be otherwise misconstrued.

A (poor) example: If I'm trying to indicate the plural of the ninth letter of the alphabet, I cannot simply indicate "is", since this would be confused with the 3rd-person singular present form of "be". Therefore: "The sign kit included several dozen lower-case tiles, six of which were i's"

But, again, this is an exception. Apostrophes are used to indicate possession; simply adding an "s" is the primary method of indicating plurality.

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