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Fran, most references I've seen call for the apostrophe in forming the plural of a single letter used as a word (Mind your p's and q's, and you may get straight A's!), of an abbreviation that includes periods (Jail greedy C.E.O.'s!) or if the singular form of the abbreviation ends in an s, making the plural ambiguous. Even in the latter case, I think "GPSes" makes more sense than "GPS's".
Think of it this way: absent the apostrophe, the final word would read "CEOS." I agree a better solution would be a punctuated abbreviation, or even just a lower case "s," but I think this area of usage allows (or should allow) some flexibility in the interest of intelligibilty. (I am now praying that my comment does not contain more grammar/punctuation/syntax/spelling errors than the original post.)
#1 by Melissa Yeuxdoux on June 30, 2009 - 1:08 pm
Maybe the writer is a native speaker of Turkish, where they have versions of "I" with and without a dot?
#2 by Fran on June 30, 2009 - 1:32 pm
The NY Times Manual of Style and Usage (and numerous other sources) prefers this use of the apostrophe in the plural.
#3 by The Monster on June 30, 2009 - 1:41 pm
Fran, most references I've seen call for the apostrophe in forming the plural of a single letter used as a word (Mind your p's and q's, and you may get straight A's!), of an abbreviation that includes periods (Jail greedy C.E.O.'s!) or if the singular form of the abbreviation ends in an s, making the plural ambiguous. Even in the latter case, I think "GPSes" makes more sense than "GPS's".
#4 by John L. Fritz' on July 27, 2009 - 6:58 pm
Think of it this way: absent the apostrophe, the final word would read "CEOS." I agree a better solution would be a punctuated abbreviation, or even just a lower case "s," but I think this area of usage allows (or should allow) some flexibility in the interest of intelligibilty. (I am now praying that my comment does not contain more grammar/punctuation/syntax/spelling errors than the original post.)