Initialisms in English language

          Initialisms are abbreviations which consist of the initial (i.e. first) letters of words and which are pronounced as separate letters when they are spoken. Examples include:

Initialism                                          Full form

BBC                                               British Broadcasting Corporation

MP                                                 Member of Parliament

UN                                                 United Nations

TUC                                               Trades Union Congress

UK                                                 United Kingdom

CD                                                 Compact disc

         You do not need to put full stops after the letters in an initialism. Sometimes, especially in American English, certain initialisms may include full stops if that is the preferred style of a particular writer or publisher. For example, the forms US and U.S. are both acceptable, as long as one or the other is used consistently within a piece of writing.

       When you are forming the plural of an initialism, you do not need to use an apostrophe, for example:

MPs                                            E.g. MPs voted against the bill.

CDs                                            E.g. I bought some new CDs today.

Note that the possessive form of initialism is formed in the usual way, with an apostrophe + s:

An MP’s salary                          (I.e. the salary of an MP)

A report on MPs’ expenses         (I.e. the expenses of MPs)

The CD’s subtitle(I.e. the subtitle of the CD)