Use of abbreviations and capital letters in British and American grammar.

[Mountain Cat]

[Mod.edit: This and following few posts moved to form a new topic (MG)]

I feel exactly the same. I pretty well hate any abbreviations for food (or maybe other things?).'Mayo' and 'EVOO' also irritate me a lot. 'EVOO' is not used at all in the UK. Why is it in caps, anyway? 'Mayo' is sometimes used but not as much as in the US.

I just noticed your query now that this thread has returned.

EVOO is in all caps for the same reason that NASA is in all caps in this country to the west of the Atlantic. Proper American spelling rules. I was really puzzled for awhile seeing "Nasa" (and similar when I was reading the British Guardian news source online). Acronyms in this country are capitalized. Hence, EVOO and NASA.

Mayo is an abbreviation, not an acronym. So it won't be all caps.

I do try to specify that my recipes may call for "extra virgin olive oil" and I typically spell that out, sometimes putting the (capitalized) acronym in parentheses in my post, if I am going to use the term a few times.

 

[Morning Glory]

EVOO is in all caps for the same reason that NASA is in all caps in this country to the west of the Atlantic. Proper American spelling rules. I was really puzzled for awhile seeing "Nasa" (and similar when I was reading the British Guardian news source online). Acronyms in this country are capitalized. Hence, EVOO and NASA.

Off topic but I notice when writing thread titles that a lot of Americans capitalise all the words. I find it disturbing as its against grammatical/spelling rules in British English. For example, if you look at newspaper headlines in British papers you will usually see only the first word beginning with a capital letter - either that or in the tabloid press its often everything in caps.

For a while I used to 'correct' thread titles written the American way because I didn't realise it was normal in the US.

 

[medtran49]

Words like and, the, in, etc aren't generally capitalised in titles in the US, it's just the important words, like ingredients in recipes, that are capitalised, i.e. words that are relevant and important to what's below.

 

[TastyReuben]

Off topic but I notice when writing thread titles that a lot of Americans capitalise all the words. I find it disturbing as its against grammatical/spelling rules in British English. For example, if you look at newspaper headlines in British papers you will usually see only the first word beginning with a capital letter - either that or in the tabloid press its often everything in caps.

For a while I used to 'correct' thread titles written the American way because I didn't realise it was normal in the US.

I remember watching a documentary about British road signs (exciting stuff, huh?) and how when they went through their last round of updating/stylizing, there was quite a bit of infighting on whether to list things mixed-case or all uppercase.

Mixed-case won out, and they had a study which showed the brain more quickly recognized "Maidstone" versus "MAIDSTONE."

As for EVOO, NASA/Nasa, etc. - as you can imagine, the military is full of these sorts of things, and when I was first stationed in the UK, I had to take an afternoon's class on British writing norms, and one of the big things that got covered was how Americans don't really differentiate much between acronyms, initialisms, and abbreviations, but that British people generally do, and one of those differences is if something is used as a word (NASA), then it's treated like a word and written as Nasa, but if it's not (like MOD), then it's written as such (MOD, or sometimes M.O.D.).

 

[Morning Glory]

one of those differences is if something is used as a word (NASA), then it's treated like a word and written as Nasa, but if it's not (like MOD), then it's written as such (MOD, or sometimes M.O.D.).

That is absolutely correct.

 

[CookieMonster]

y'awl can hoot and holler all youse want about UK vs American english - but in fact all the rules, punctuation, capitalization, etc etc etc etc are virtually all out the window in espace.
fight it if you wish - the thumbers are winning.

 

[TastyReuben]

That is absolutely correct.

I paid attention in class!

 

[Sticky Fingers]

Off topic but I notice when writing thread titles that a lot of Americans capitalise all the words. I find it disturbing as its against grammatical/spelling rules in British English. For example, if you look at newspaper headlines in British papers you will usually see only the first word beginning with a capital letter - either that or in the tabloid press its often everything in caps.

For a while I used to 'correct' thread titles written the American way because I didn't realise it was normal in the US.

Typing in all caps also represents Shouting !

 

[Morning Glory]

Typing in all caps also represents Shouting !

Absolutely. Its banned on CookingBites.

 

[Morning Glory]

fight it if you wish

No fights here. I was acknowledging that I didn't originally know that the grammar of titling was different across the pond. We aim to be tolerant. We are Brits after all!

 

[CookieMonster]

No fights here. I was acknowledging that I didn't originally know that the grammar of titling was different across the pond. We aim to be tolerant. We are Brits after all!

so , , , what do they do with book titles printed on the spine?

 

[Morning Glory]

so , , , what do they do with book titles printed on the spine?

Book titles - hmm... good point! With book titles it varies. Sometimes all in caps. Sometimes caps at the start of each 'main' word. Prepositions in UK English will not normally start with caps. I suppose its the same with film titles.

 

[caseydog]

Off topic but I notice when writing thread titles that a lot of Americans capitalise all the words. I find it disturbing as its against grammatical/spelling rules in British English. For example, if you look at newspaper headlines in British papers you will usually see only the first word beginning with a capital letter - either that or in the tabloid press its often everything in caps.

For a while I used to 'correct' thread titles written the American way because I didn't realise it was normal in the US.

Having been a senior art director for an American car magazine, it is a habit I can't break. It is more about typography than grammar.

I put a lot of time and effort into headlines. I wrote them in Adobe Illustrator, turned them into shapes, and placed ever letter one at a time. That's what publications do here.

Think of it like food styling. You put every element of your dish in place. That's how I am with type. And, it carries over into my everyday typing. I use caps in my thread titles, just as I did with my headlines.

Then again, our cars have tires, not tyres, we taste flavors, not flavours, and aluminum has four syllables.


CD

 

[caseydog]

I guess I took things even further off topic. But mom, Morning Glory started it. Or is that Morning glory?

CD

 

[mjd]

Off topic but I notice when writing thread titles that a lot of Americans capitalise all the words. I find it disturbing as its against grammatical/spelling rules in British English. For example, if you look at newspaper headlines in British papers you will usually see only the first word beginning with a capital letter - either that or in the tabloid press its often everything in caps.

For a while I used to 'correct' thread titles written the American way because I didn't realise it was normal in the US.

You are correct in that it is that way for articles or chapters of a book. It's the UK way for just about everything else.

Like you, I find it jarring when reading. I was on a forum years ago and one poster capitalized the beginning letter of EVERY word. It was so hard to read that I just gave up on his posts.

I'm on a couple of digital design groups and I would swear half the people never met a period or comma. LOL If your "sentence" is 500 words, you need some breaks in there!

I'm getting less patient with it. I just delete those without attempting to make sense of it. (probably not nice, but my absence of a headache is more important than my desire to read whatever is in a wall of text).