[stylist] Question: writing about the letters of the alphabet

[KajunCutie926 at aol.com]

I was able to find this... hope it helps in some  way.
 
Overview: Add s alone in most cases
Details: Form the plural of a single  character (except 0, 1, M, and the 
vowels a, e, i, o, u, A, E, I, O, and U) by  adding s alone. Adding s alone to 
form the plural of these exceptions produces  combinations that could be 
confused with words or common abbreviations (Is, as,  Ms, and us). Because of 
this, the plurals of 0 and 1 should be either spelled  out as zeros and 
ones, or formed by adding an apostrophe and an s (0's and 1's).  The plurals of 
a, e, i, o, u, A, E, I, M, O, and U should be formed by adding an  
apostrophe andan s (a's, e's, M's, and so on).If a sentence that refers to  plurals 
of letters includes one of the exceptions, use a consistent  treatment.Spell 
out plural numbers that are part of the name of a complement,  such as ones 
complement or twos complement.
 
 
In a message dated 1/24/2013 9:13:19 A.M. Central Standard Time,  
penatwork at epix.net writes:

Eve,
I'm OK with that in general, and like using just the s to  make the plural,
but in this particular case the reference is specifically  to lower case. My
character is legally blind, but still can write. She has  a board with
elastic bands across to keep the lines straight, and she's  referring to how
the elastic stretches down when she makes the lower case g  in her name,
which is Abigail. I can't believe there isn't a rule, but I  haven't been
able to find it.
Donna 

-----Original  Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of  Eve Sanchez
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2013 10:17 PM
To: Writer's  Division Mailing List
Subject: Re: [stylist] Question: writing about the  letters of the alphabet

Interesting question. I do not know if there is  a rule about this or not. I
do know that I have a personal preference as I  have actually thought of 
this
before. (Great minds...). Well, I like to  capitalize the letter referenced
and then when pluralizing I add a lower  case S. For example it would be Gs
when two or a singular G.Waiting to see  if there is a rule on this though I
may end up ignoring it anyways.  Eve

On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 12:20 PM, Donna Hill  <penatwork at epix.net> wrote:

> Hi All,
> OK, how do you  put it in print when you're talking about the letters 
> of the  alphabet? For instance, "When I write a g, bla, bla, bla. Or if 
> it  were plural, "When I write my gs, ..." I'm looking for what is 
>  considered proper grammar/spelling. I've considered having the letter 
>  in italics, placing an apostrophe before it and, in the case of a 
>  plural, gs would seem more correct than using an apostrophe between 
>  the letters -- g's -- because it's not either possessive or a 
>  contraction. Jaws likes the apostrophe, however, in terms of 
>  pronunciation. Anyway, if anyone has a source for the standard for 
>  this, please let me know. I haven't gotten anywhere Googling it, and  I
can't find it in any of the style books I have.
> Thanks,
>  Donna
>
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