"LED's" or "Lead's" boxes or -/\/\/\-

[IanB]

Our European (and European-descendant) friends seem to use the term "inverted comma" for the mark we call "apostrophe".

I am native born British, having grown up there and spent most of my life there, and I do recall the term inverted comma now that you mention it. However, it is maybe something used around children to avoid them struggling to say (and spell) apostrophe. Apostrophe has always been the formal and correct word, as evidenced by, for example, Keith Waterhouse's AAAA (Association for the Abolition of the Aberrant Apostrophe).

[Halcyon]

I used to always pronounce the letters of LED, until at one place I worked we somehow started an ongoing joke of insisting that all acronyms must be pronounced as words.  This was in the days when laptops had PCMCIA slots...

But "Pik-Mik-E-Ah" is so fun to say!

It was reasonably common in Australia to pronounce PCMCIA as "P-C Mica", but to me it just sounded wanky. I always pronounced all the letters as in P-C-M-C-I-A.

[Brumby]

I always pronounced all the letters as in P-C-M-C-I-A.

Me too.

[jhalar]

I know a lot of Aussies who are dead against "rowter" because we take a direct "root" not a direct "rowt". I kinda agree but I still say "rowter" instead of "rooter"

Working with computer networks for 20 years my mind is conditioned to say 'rowter' when talking about network routers and bus 'root' when travelling.

[PointyOintment]

SATA: to rhyme with NASA

SATA: Serial Aye Tee Aye

So you pronounce it "say-tay"?

I used to always pronounce the letters of LED, until at one place I worked we somehow started an ongoing joke of insisting that all acronyms must be pronounced as words.

If you don't pronounce it is as a word, it's not an acronym—it's an initialism.

But with more and more things like Compact Disc becoming "CD" in formal writing, typing C.D.'s or later CD's went out of vogue with the formal writing crowd and now they appear to pluralize via capitalization only.

But " 's " was once the accurate, formal, way to pluralize an acronym.

(Just like that Oxford comma I just snuck into that sentence.

That's not an Oxford comma. "accurate, formal, and way" vs. "accurate, formal and way" demonstrates the Oxford comma (but doesn't make much sense). Oxford comma is not even a valid concept, AFAIK, in the context of listing adjectives before a noun without the use of 'and'.

[denverpilot]

But with more and more things like Compact Disc becoming "CD" in formal writing, typing C.D.'s or later CD's went out of vogue with the formal writing crowd and now they appear to pluralize via capitalization only.

But " 's " was once the accurate, formal, way to pluralize an acronym.

(Just like that Oxford comma I just snuck into that sentence.

That's not an Oxford comma. "accurate, formal, and way" vs. "accurate, formal and way" demonstrates the Oxford comma (but doesn't make much sense). Oxford comma is not even a valid concept, AFAIK, in the context of listing adjectives before a noun without the use of 'and'.

True, bad example of the comma, but the point was, style guides change and unless you're making a living with formal writing, you'll write it the way you learned it. The pluralization by " 's " once was just fine.

[Brumby]

The pluralization by " 's " once was just fine.

Not where I come from.  The apostrophe was always to indicate the possessive form or for a contraction - never pluralization.

[Brumby]

The pluralization by " 's " once was just fine.

Not where I come from.  The apostrophe was always to indicate the possessive form or for a contraction - never pluralization.

I also see 's used to indicate plural a lot, but I never managed to find any explanation on any grammar books or grammar forums.
So I would assume the use of 's as a plural indicator is not grammatically correct.

That's my read on the subject.

From what I have noticed, there has been a fairly lax attitude on grammar since I was in school - and incorrect usage has gone unchallenged.  Even when it is, those who point it out are castigated with the tag "Spelling Police" or "Grammar Police".

[vk6zgo]

Our European (and European-descendant) friends seem to use the term "inverted comma" for the mark we call "apostrophe".

I am native born British, having grown up there and spent most of my life there, and I do recall the term inverted comma now that you mention it. However, it is maybe something used around children to avoid them struggling to say (and spell) apostrophe. Apostrophe has always been the formal and correct word, as evidenced by, for example, Keith Waterhouse's AAAA (Association for the Abolition of the Aberrant Apostrophe).

When I was young,the term "inverted commas" was common in Oz,but it was a synonym for "quotation marks"( these things:-   "     "  ),not apostrophes.

We normally wrote them with  the "tails" down like ordinary commas,but I have seen them really "inverted",with the "tail" up,or occasionally with the one at the beginning of the quote "tail down" & the one at the end "tail up".

Back on topic,I think the "rectangular box" resistor symbol significantly pre-dated
computer drafting & was adopted to make it easier for manual drafting.
After all,a rectangular drawing aid was a lot easier to use than a "zigzag line" one.

Another possible reason was the fact that Industrial Electronics liked to draw inductors as zig-zag lines.

These days,computer drafting makes either resistor symbol easy to use,& zigzag lines for inductors never took off in mainstream Electronics.

Australia originally had more influence  from the UK & USA than from Europe,hence zigzag resistor symbols became the style of choice.
Japan uses them,too,so another "zig zag" influence was added.

As a result,even though the rectangle style is "supposed to be" the official symbol,both are in wide use.

In the end,both styles are easily readable.

[IanB]

I also see 's used to indicate plural a lot, but I never managed to find any explanation on any grammar books or grammar forums.
So I would assume the use of 's as a plural indicator is not grammatically correct.

The explanation is quite straightforward.

The plural of a word is formed by adding an s without an apostrophe, so for example board/boards, transistor/transistors.

An s with an apostrophe is used to mark possession, for example "John's boards came back faulty from the manufacturer."

However, apostrophes are also used to form contractions, by joining together two things that are normally separate, for example it is becomes it's.

This joining usage was at one time extended to forming the plural of acronyms or abbreviations, so for example the plural of LED would be written as LED's. The s is not part of the abbreviation, therefore it is separated with an apostrophe to indicate that it is something joined on, that it is not part of the thing being pluralized.

But over time, grammatical style has tended towards simplicity, and people started treating LED like a word rather than an abbreviation and therefore dropping the apostrophe in the plural and writing LEDs.

I would say it is still acceptable to write LED's as the plural, but such usage does seem to be dying out.

[timb]

I also see 's used to indicate plural a lot, but I never managed to find any explanation on any grammar books or grammar forums.
So I would assume the use of 's as a plural indicator is not grammatically correct.

The explanation is quite straightforward.

The plural of a word is formed by adding an s without an apostrophe, so for example board/boards, transistor/transistors.

An s with an apostrophe is used to mark possession, for example "John's boards came back faulty from the manufacturer."

However, apostrophes are also used to form contractions, by joining together two things that are normally separate, for example it is becomes it's.

This joining usage was at one time extended to forming the plural of acronyms or abbreviations, so for example the plural of LED would be written as LED's. The s is not part of the abbreviation, therefore it is separated with an apostrophe to indicate that it is something joined on, that it is not part of the thing being pluralized.

But over time, grammatical style has tended towards simplicity, and people started treating LED like a word rather than an abbreviation and therefore dropping the apostrophe in the plural and writing LEDs.

I would say it is still acceptable to write LED's as the plural, but such usage does seem to be dying out.

To me, that doesn't follow logically.

Think about it, abbreviations and acronyms pretty much always contain capital letters, so the "S" being lowercase indicates it's not part of the abbrevronym and is instead implying plurality.

[CraigHB]

You have confused me there, and possibly yourself as well.

A comma sits on the bottom of the line, like this -> ,

An apostrophe sits above the line, like this -> '

They are different punctuation symbols with different names and uses.

Haha, forgot to take my meds yesterday morning.  But yeah I meant apostrophe, not comma.  I guess I had a mental block about spelling that darn word.

I actually liked my English classes in college.  I enjoyed the ones most with writing assignments.  I like writing, that's why I visit various forums.

[eugenenine]

My college english was pretty easy.  By then I already had several assignments from high school that I was able to simply open and re-print one of those and hand in.

[Richard Crowley]

The only thing I liked about English class was diagramming sentences.  (Perhaps it reminded me of schematic diagrams.)
I remember this illustration from Scientific American back in the 1960s discussing the ambiguities in parsing language:



Of course, 50 years later Google (et.al.) has solved it by simply throwing MFLOPS at the problem.

[rolycat]

Fruit flies like a banana.

[PointyOintment]

The only thing I liked about English class was diagramming sentences.  (Perhaps it reminded me of schematic diagrams.)
I remember this illustration from Scientific American back in the 1960s discussing the ambiguities in parsing language:



Of course, 50 years later Google (et.al.) has solved it by simply throwing MFLOPS at the problem.

Reminds me of: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/18/what-sentence-diagrams-re_n_167988.html

More: https://www.google.ca/search?q=obama+sentence+diagram&tbm=isch

I particularly like this one: http://www.german-latin-english.com/Barack_Obama_44.jpg (quite large so I didn't embed it)

[raspberrypi]

did i mention routers or rootrs as some of the UK may say 

I know a lot of Aussies who are dead against "rowter" because we take a direct "root" not a direct "rowt". I kinda agree but I still say "rowter" instead of "rooter"

Kangarooter

[ZeTeX]

I draw resistors as boxes, and call LEDs like LEDs and not L.E.Ds

[Delta]

Ell Eee Dee.

[mmagin]

Learning about electronics in the USA, mostly from my dad, the one that was a surprise for me was nanofarads.  Traditionally in the US you just went from <1000 pF to .001 uF.  But the more I've been exposed to it, the more it actually feels less awkward to write 1 nF, 10 nF, 100 nF.

[JustMac]

Dare I ask how gigahertz is pronounced ?   

[Ysjoelfir]

I would say gee-ga-hurts (with a unpronounced g, so no "djeeeee-djaaaa" ( ))

[IanB]

Dare I ask how gigahertz is pronounced ?   

How it is spelled: gig-a-hertz

There is no need for popcorn as there is no ambiguity about it.

[JustMac]

Dare I ask how gigahertz is pronounced ?   

How it is spelled: gig-a-hertz

There is no need for popcorn as there is no ambiguity about it.

So it's jig-a-hurts like the G in giants ?   
Or gig-a-hurts like the G in gag me with a spoon ? 

[SpaceCow]

I call them leads just for the sole purpose of annoying "un-lead-"  folks like the OP.