Thursday, 29 October 2015

verbs - Proper to add tense to acronyms, abbreviations and initialisms

What is the correct way to pluralize an acronym? asked about pluralising acronyms, abbreviations and initialisms, but is there a standard way to add verb endings e.g. -ing and -ed (what are these called?), at least in informal English?



For example, which of these is/are best?



  1. I'm SMSing her.

  2. I'm SMS-ing her.

  3. I'm SMS'ing her.

I know I can rephrase it to "I'm sending her an SMS." but I wish to use SMS as a verb.



Similarly,



  1. He FUBARed.

  2. He FUBAR-ed.

  3. He FUBAR'ed.

  4. He FUBAR-d.

  5. He FUBAR'd.

In the latter set, as the verb is actually the F ("foul", or something more explicit) — the expanded sentence being "He fouled up beyond all recognition." — should it even be "He FedUBAR." or similar?

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