How to pronounce acronyms with apostrophes?

Question

Simple question:

How do you pronounce acronyms when they're used with apostrophe to express possession? For example:

In the NIH's high-risk, high-reward programmes, “if an idea isn't developing the way it was expected to, awardees have the flexibility to pursue a more promising avenue of research”.

Answer 1

I think typically you would follow the rules of pronunciation given the last letter of the acronym. So as mgb says, in your example it would be "En Aye Aitch ez". Some other examples:

The US's: "The You Ess ez"

The USA's: "The You Ess Ayz"

The UK's: "The You Kayz"

The CBC's: "The Cee Bee Ceez"

If the acronym is one that you read like a word, such as NASA, then you would follow the rules for words.

NASA's: "Nassaz"

And so forth.

Answer 2

i would pronounce it "N I H -es" ie "en hi aitch ez"