Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!texbell!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Acronyms. Is is `1 MIP' or `1 MIPS'? Message-ID: Date: 28 Jun 90 14:32:21 GMT References: <6033@helios.TAMU.EDU> <111360@linus.mitre.org> <305@spam.ua.oz> Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Lines: 13 In article , harkcom@potato.pa.Yokogawa.CO.JP (Alton Harkcom) writes: > If you want to refer to the states as individual entities you can not > use the capitalized "The United States of America" you could use "the united > states of America" but then you would be insulting Canada, Central America and > South America... But you would still have to spell it "USA" in an acronym. But, for the second time, that's beside the point. The point is that you can't treat acronyms as nouns. you have to expand them and use them in context, and the singular of MIPS is still "one IPS". -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180.