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Syntax: VLANs or VLAN’s ?

24th September 2009 By 7 Comments

So I am often writing about VLANs in a design. Sometimes in the singular, and sometimes in the plural. But when I write about multiple VLAN’s, which way would most people write it.

Is it VLANs, VLANS, or VLAN’s ? Lets have a vote and see if we can get agreement. If there is a proper rule for the grammar, lets hear about it in the comments.

[poll id="7"]

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Greg Ferro is a Network Engineer/Architect, mostly focussed on Data Centre, Security Infrastructure, and recently Virtualization. He has over 20 years in IT, in wide range of employers working as a freelance consultant including Finance, Service Providers and Online Companies. He is CCIE#6920 and has a few ideas about the world, but not enough to really count.

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  • IPv6Freely

    It’s simple grammar. VLAN’s is not valid because it is not possessive. Remember, apostrophes replace vowels. VLANS is not valid because the S is not part of the acronym and therefore should not be capatalized. Finally, VLANs is correct because if you spell out the acronym, you would get “Virtual Local Area Networks”. Not “Virtual Local Area Network’s”, or “Virtual Local Area NetworkS”.

    It should be noted of course that VLAN’s would be appropriate in some usage, such as if you were to say “That particular VLAN’s number is 100″, because that would then expand to “That particular Virtual Local Area Network’s number is 100.”

    Grammar 101.

    • http://ertw.com/blog/ Sean

      +1

      • Daniel

        I agree with IPv6Freely…. Not posessive, so no apostrophe.

    • http://blog.angelcastaneda.com Angel Castaneda

      My grammar senses were tingling, but I’m glad to see that IPv6Freely set the record straight.

  • Gabriel

    +1 for IPv6Freely’s argument.

  • http://www.observernms.org adama

    VLAN’s is technically correct when referring to multiples, as initialisms (VLAN is an initialism) were originally pluralized with an apostrophe. This was when intialisms were largely written with periods such as V.L.A.N.’s.

    However, now that it’s more common to omit the periods (atleast in British English), it’s now also more common to pluralize these as ordinary English nouns, without an apostrophe.

    IPv6Freely’s argument leans in the correct direction, but isn’t 100% accurate. +0.5 :)

    • http://danhughes1234ie.blogspot.com Dan Hughes

      There are 15 VLANs on the switch. You should check the VLAN’s spanning tree configuration..