3.9 Become an awesome apostrophe aficionado
The third of the three uses of apostrophes is to show plurals of letters, numbers or symbols, including abbreviations. This third use of apostrophes is optional because not all style guides agree on it.
Consider the following sentence.
During high school I didn’t get any A grades, but I scored all High Distinctions in the final year of my undergraduate degree.
If you wanted to abbreviate the bolded terms in the above sentence, you could put an apostrophe before the letter ‘s’.
During high school I didn’t get any A’s, but I scored all HD’s in the final year of my undergraduate degree.
However, it would also be correct to write the following if you preferred, without apostrophes.
During high school I didn’t get any As, but I scored all HDs in the final year of my undergraduate degree.
Photo by Mohammed Frhat on Unsplash
Whether or not you use apostrophes in plural forms of letters, numbers or symbols, including abbreviations, is up to you. Personally, I prefer not to use apostrophes in plurals of any kind, because that way it’s clear that I’m not showing ownership.