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

Thu Jan 24 21:40:56 UTC 2013

Myrna,
Excellent! In this, when the person is referring to a single letter, they
differentiate between capital and lower case according to meaning. In my
example, it would just be lower case g followed immediately by lower case s
-- so it would be gs. It doesn't say anything about italics. Thanks. Donna

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
KajunCutie926 at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2013 10:35 AM
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [stylist] Question: writing about the letters of the alphabet

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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