acronyms and abreviations

Question

My grammar book, "Spanish an essential grammar" by Peter T. Bradley and Ian Mackensie.
reads that abreviations in Spanish indicate the plural by a doubling of the capital letters.Is this true?
Here are a couple of examples:
EEUUA United States of America
las FFAA the armed forces
I know that this was done back in the 50's, I don't know if this is correct for the 21 century

Answer 1

I've a vague feeling that I read somewhere that this 'rule' is not always used; that is, there are some acronyms where plurals are not doubled up. I don't have any examples though and I can't remember where I saw that.

Answer 2

This comes from a rule in Latin, and we still have one last vestige of it in English, too. When we abbreviate "page," we use "p.," but "pages" is "pp."

Answer 3

I'm so glad you posted this. I always wondered why "Estados Unidos" was EE. UU. and not E.U. Thanks!

Answer 4

Got it,thanks

Answer 5

Gus said:

Thank you, 'am glad, i asked because my book didn't show the periods or the separations. I just knew,automatically, there was something wrong with book's sample.

According to the RAE, you should be using the dot and the space. In practice, very few follow this convention (including newspapers, the Government, etc.).

Answer 6

Thank you, 'am glad, i asked because my book didn't show the periods or the separations. I just knew,automatically, there was something wrong with book's sample.

lazarus1907 said:

It is, but it is not usually written like that, but:EE. UU. = Estados UnidosFF. AA. = Fuerzas Armadas

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Answer 7

It is, but it is not usually written like that, but:

EE. UU. = Estados Unidos
FF. AA. = Fuerzas Armadas
SS. MM. = Sus Majestades
CC. OO. = Comisiones Obreras