Re: [vox] [OT] ISO's vs ISOs

[Peter Jay Salzman <p@dMAPSirac.org>]

begin Jeff Newmiller <jdnewmil@dcn.davis.ca.us> 
> On Mon, 22 Jul 2002, Micah Cowan wrote:
> 
> > Peter Jay Salzman writes:
> >  > begin Henry House <hajhouse@houseag.com> 
> >  > > On Sun, Jul 21, 2002 at 11:08:52PM -0700, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> >  > 
> >  > not all acronyms use all uppercase.  what would you do to make the
> >  > sentence unambiguous in that case?
> 
> So you would like to write "A bunch of Heliums" as "A bunch of He's" and
> suggest that this is somehow clear?

bleah.  your example sucks.  you're trying to tell me what correct
english is with the example sentence "a bunch of heliums"?

and you're expecting me to take advice from you?   lol!


why not give me a better sentence to prove your point?  that way, i
might actually take you seriously.  you don't have a "bunch of heliums".
you have a bunch of atoms.

i'll give you a hint.  i just found the acronym "Mb" which stands for
"megabase" (i have no idea what it means, but it pertains to the human
genome somehow).   also, according to http://www.ornl.gov, the official
acronym for "nuclear magnetic resonance" is "nmr" (not "NMR").

try giving a less embarrasing example.

> Assuming a sentence could be
> constructed in which a plural of such an abbreviation made sense, I can't
> imagine how adding an apostrophe will make it clearer, given the rules of
> English.
 
well, take it from someone who's spent a long time being a scientist.
just because YOU can't imagine it, doesn't mean it's not true.

i'm kind of disappointed that your thinking is so calcified.

pete

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