Apostrophe With Plural of Lowercase Letters
The Apostrophe
Rulebase Summary
Use an apostrophe and s to show the plural form of uncapitalized letters and uncapitalized abbreviations. This prevents misreading — without the apostrophe, a pluralized lowercase letter could be confused with a word.
Examples
A. Mind your ps and qs.
A. Mind your p's and q's.
Lowercase letters need an apostrophe and s for plurals to prevent misreading.
A. She got all as on her report card.
A. She got all a's on her report card.
Without the apostrophe, 'as' could be misread as the word 'as.'
Transcript Notes
The trend is toward omitting the apostrophe for plural letters, but with lowercase letters, omitting it can create readability problems. Capitalized letters made plural without the apostrophe can form words (e.g., Is, As). With lowercase letters, it is best to retain the apostrophe. Many reporters simply leave the plural letter alone without quotes or italics.
Style Guide References (3)
Morson's
BGGP
BGGP