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

caseydog said:
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.

View attachment 64020

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.

View attachment 64021

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
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Here its same as newspapers - either all caps or only caps at the beginning of the headlines. This is an example from a quality car mag:
64024


64025
 
don't believe I have ever seen NASA done as Nasa
or FBI as Fbi
or IRS as Irs
or CIA as Cia
or
or
or
 
CookieMonster said:
don't believe I have ever seen NASA done as Nasa
or FBI as Fbi
or IRS as Irs
or CIA as Cia
or
or
or
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Well, FBI would stay FBI, with the letters stated, because it doesn't spell anything, and I don't think anyone ever refers to the CIA as "Cia," like see-uh. If we did, then you'd see it written as Cia wherever they follow that rule.

If you want to see "Nasa," just read some UK articles that aren't retooled for American audiences.

The one that drives me bonkers, as far as pronunciation is concerned, is ASAP. I say it like a word, some say it like A.S.A.P., saying each letter, which drives me crazy because, when you think about it, that word/acronym is usually used to impart some urgency, and you've just used four syllables where two would have sufficed. :laugh:
 
mjd said:
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).
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for a while it seemed like there was a trend to send emails and text messages in all lowercase with no punctuation one sentence ran right into the next basically like I am writing this post

Let's eat, Grandma.

lets eat grandma

Punctuation matters!

CD
 
caseydog said:
for a while it seemed like there was a trend to send emails and text messages in all lowercase with no punctuation one sentence ran right into the next basically like I am writing this post

Let's eat, Grandma.

lets eat grandma

Punctuation matters!

CD
Click to expand...
It does? It does! It does. ;-)
 
CookieMonster said:
don't believe I have ever seen NASA done as Nasa
or FBI as Fbi
or IRS as Irs
or CIA as Cia
or
or
or
Click to expand...

My spell check auto puts it right for me but I don't know why but . Full . Stops appear at random in my text. Or an a is an s? Just my I pad.
Kiwis are taught the British system here, had foot and inches growing up but later converted with metric, I'm easy with both.

Russ
 
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When writing posts on forums or emails I always try to get my spelling and grammar correct - its something that's really important to me. And in fact hubby laughs at me because it takes me ages to write an email: I go back and edit it over and over until I'm happy with it. Good grammar and spelling does make things easier to read, and I try my best to make sure my contributions are as clear as I can make them.

But....working in an international environment where for the majority of people English is not their native language (and in some cases the Roman alphabet isn't even their primary alphabet!) I'm pretty tolerant of the mistakes of others. Don't get me wrong....most of the time their written English is almost perfect, but capitalisation is one of the areas people often get wrong. Which is understandable actually if you remember that the rules do vary between languages (or even, it seems, between different versions of the same language :okay:).
 
ISS is okay, but not NASA.....
hmmmmm
Ibm
Mmm
Aflac
Aol
At&t
Csx
Cvs

there's a raft of companies using capital letters for their names.
registered trademarks - almost without except.
not buying the idea of first letter caps only.
 
CookieMonster said:
ISS is okay, but not NASA.....
hmmmmm
Ibm
Mmm
Aflac
Aol
At&t
Csx
Cvs

there's a raft of companies using capital letters for their names.
registered trademarks - almost without except.
not buying the idea of first letter caps only.
Click to expand...
I think you've missed the point. It's a difference in British and American grammar rules in the way acronyms and initialisms are treated when written.

ISS - correct
Aflac - also correct
...if you're following British grammar guidelines. Simple.
 
CookieMonster said:
ISS is okay, but not NASA.....
hmmmmm
Ibm
Mmm
Aflac
Aol
At&t
Csx
Cvs

there's a raft of companies using capital letters for their names.
registered trademarks - almost without except.
not buying the idea of first letter caps only.
Click to expand...
Its explained above by TastyReuben - whether or not they are capitalised depends on how they are pronounced.

In British English, if you say the letters separately eg. ISS, FBI, HMRC, CIA, AT&T then they are written all capitals. But if you make an actual word out the the abbreviation eg. Nasa, radar, laser, scuba, we don't generally capitalise them (grammatically this is called an acronym). Nasa is actually a bit of an unusual one because its both an acronym and a proper noun so it is always capitalised but is not written in full capitals.
 
MrsDangermouse said:
When writing posts on forums or emails I always try to get my spelling and grammar correct - its something that's really important to me. And in fact hubby laughs at me because it takes me ages to write an email: I go back and edit it over and over until I'm happy with it. Good grammar and spelling does make things easier to read, and I try my best to make sure my contributions are as clear as I can make them.

But....working in an international environment where for the majority of people English is not their native language (and in some cases the Roman alphabet isn't even their primary alphabet!) I'm pretty tolerant of the mistakes of others. Don't get me wrong....most of the time their written English is almost perfect, but capitalisation is one of the areas people often get wrong. Which is understandable actually if you remember that the rules do vary between languages (or even, it seems, between different versions of the same language :okay:).
Click to expand...

I try my best, too. Having written professionally, you would think it would be a natural thing, but it isn't. One thing I have noticed is that I usually notice my typos AFTER I click the "Post reply" button. :facepalm:

American English and British English are definitely different in many minor ways. Capitalization (< correct American spelling) is one of those ways.

CD
 
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