The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #5973   Message #34653
Posted By: Ireland O'Reilly
12-Aug-98 - 05:47 PM
Thread Name: pedantry
Subject: RE: pedantry
Bill D: glad to C U R back at it... speaking out against abbreviations, that is! :) *grins*

Bob Bolton: Interesting bit about the bob!

All right, then... here's my two cents about the "bio's" issue: BIOS (with all capitals) is the acronym, the "compu-speak" word. "bios" (with little letters) however, one would assume is a shortened version of "biographies". I cringed when I saw the apostrophe. (I am a beast about punctuation... one of the reasons why kids would have hated me, had I become a grammar teacher, and also one of the reasons I'm doing post-grad work in journalism instead of education!)

In any case, one must also keep in mind the context in which our now famous "bio's" appears. Obviously, artists don't have "BIOS"... unless they are AI. It has to be "bios". "bio's" would denote "belonging to bio" or "of bio".

So, "bios" gets my vote. Of course, if it were really up to me, I, like Joe, would be likely to use "biographies" as I'm not really much for abbreviations myself.

Cheers,

Ireland