The Plural of CMS

And now for something completely different –

When I wrote my book, my original draft used the acronym “CMS” to refer to the plural of…CMS. More than one “content management system” would be “content management systems” which is still represented by the acronym “CMS”

In fact, I had a note on this in the preface.

It’s worth nothing that since CMS means “Content Management System,” the plural of this can lead to awkwardness. The plural of “CMS” is technically also “CMS,” since the only word to need pluralizing is the word “system” which is represented by the last letter. So, we have a “single CMS,” but we also have a group of “many CMS.”

Sadly, no one got the chance to “get used to it,” because O’Reilly over-ruled me during copyediting, and my note was removed. I remain undaunted, however, and I retrieved that text from a prior Git commit as a (weak) form of protest. If you want to argue the point one way or the other, let me know.