06-26-2013, 06:38 PM | #1 |
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Acronyms lowercase in the UK?
While reading the first bit of this article, I couldn't help but to notice that the Defense of Marriage Act, known by the shorthands DoMA or DOMA over here in the United States, is provided as "Doma" by the BBC, almost as if it isn't an acronym at all. I'm just curious: is this common in British writing? Does it depend on the acronym? Some examples-by-question:
Do you write CIA or Cia? Do you write NASA or Nasa? Do you write FIFA or Fifa? Do you write AIDS or Aids? Do you write NATO or Nato? One possible hint I've found would seem to suggest that your answers will be "CIA, Nasa, Fifa, Aids, Nato" as only the first of these is read by its letters ("C I A") whereas the others are read as though they were words proper ("Nasa", not "N A S A"). Is this the case?
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06-26-2013, 06:51 PM | #2 |
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That's the first time I've ever seen such a thing that I can remember.
While I personally write those provided examples in allcaps, I tend to say most of them. While I do say 'See-Eye-Ay' individually, I say 'Nass-a' of 'Feef-a' or 'Nay-toe' or 'Aids'. But I write them NASA, FIFA, NATO, and AIDS. I'm pretty sure this is a one-time goof on the Beeb's part. |
06-26-2013, 07:05 PM | #3 | |
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Well that's why I asked whether it was common or not. I wanted to know whether this was an abnormality or whether it was the typical case. But say it is a mistake on the BBC's part. That's still incredible. Incredible that someone's brain actually so registers an acronym like DOMA as a word that they write it as Doma instead. It's sort of a living window into how older acronyms (like LASER and RADAR) became lowercase words over time.
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06-28-2013, 04:53 AM | #4 |
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Generally alcaps. However, Defense (sic) of Marriage Act is correct as of is not an important word. So see WoW (World of Warcraft), DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport).
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06-28-2013, 06:25 AM | #5 |
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Maybe I'm less literate than you guys or its because I'm from the north of England but I write:
NASA (mainly because that's how its presented in news and media) Fifa (probably because its said a lot on facebook where formality is left behind) Aids (I even spell the 'a' in lower case and treat it very much like laser in that I knew the word well before the acronym) NATO? (I've never needed to write it down before so I'm not sure)
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06-28-2013, 09:20 AM | #6 |
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The difference between AIDS and Aids is the Jared episode of South Park.
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06-28-2013, 09:24 AM | #7 |
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But then not every acronym is capitalised, only if it's a name of an organisation or a proper title. So, laser isn't capitalised.
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06-28-2013, 09:31 AM | #8 |
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It's capitalized if it's at the beginning of a sentence
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06-28-2013, 09:49 AM | #9 | |
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EEG TV VCR CD-ROM TNT DDT DEET MRI CT NMR CRT GWAM I could keep going, but I think you get the point. The point being that being not an organization and not a proper title simply isn't enough. In most cases, a third implied rule seems to be "it has to be readable as a word". (Note that most of the acronyms listed above are read letter by letter and many cannot be read as normal-sounding English words.) But in some cases, even that rule isn't enough to lock it in. (See: DEET, GWAM)
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06-28-2013, 09:57 AM | #10 | |
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