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0 pointsmattmanser10y ago0 comments

It's CMSes and OSes. You're looking for the plurals, so you definitely don't need to use a possessive apostrophe there because there's no ownership in the sentence.

Also, because they're acronyms you pronounce by enunciating the words, my instinct would be to use OS's (as you would pronounce the 's, O-S-es). But that's up for debate.

For example:

The OS's kernel blew up (possessive apostrophe, the OS owns the kernel)

He had a wide range of OSes to choose from (pluralization, there are many OSes)

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2 comments · 2 top-level

mrmondo10y ago

Thank you for clarifying / pointing that out to me. I've never spent time to understand that an apostrophe used in this way made it possessive. I've taken that on board and will (hopefully) not make this mistake again.

notNow10y ago

Since we're picking on people for their grammar mistakes, let me throw my hat in the ring:

I'm more in favor of this convention (OS') when it comes to possessive apostrophes for word that end in an "S" which is to omit the trailing "S" and leave to the reader or interlocutor to infer the meaning from the context.

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