Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Username

JGHarvey

Member Since

April 25, 2020

Total number of comments

1

Total number of votes received

0

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Latest Comments

Possessive with acronyms ending in S

  • April 25, 2020, 1:59pm

I've read your discussion on acronyms and initialisms several times trying to determine the best way to show my company's name in possessive form - BIAS Corporation but without the word corporation for practical purposes. BIAS is short for Business Intelligent Application Solutions and we pronounce BIAS as a word not the initials. Can you confirm whether we should use BIAS' or BIAS's when possessive? I believe it's the latter from what I've read but would love a confirmation.

I've pasted the most relevant portion of the discussion below from March 3rd 2005:
"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."