It's one of those obscurities in many style manuals: At the end of a term ending in a period, you pluralize with apostrophe-s. For example: Ph.D.'s, M.D.'s, C.P.A.'s. Although it's consistent, it hits the eye funny; according to the Times's own spring 2010 blog post about this, lots of people complain about it!
The periods themselves, however, are extraneous. It's been twenty years since any of these acronyms were punctuated, so punctuating the unnecessary punctuation is an excess of excess.
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It's one of those obscurities in many style manuals: At the end of a term ending in a period, you pluralize with apostrophe-s. For example: Ph.D.'s, M.D.'s, C.P.A.'s. Although it's consistent, it hits the eye funny; according to the Times's own spring 2010 blog post about this, lots of people complain about it!
The periods themselves, however, are extraneous. It's been twenty years since any of these acronyms were punctuated, so punctuating the unnecessary punctuation is an excess of excess.
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