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From: djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
Subject: Re: AKICIF: British Capitalization of Acronyms for Organizations
Message-ID: <sy2JnE.8w2@kithrup.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2025 20:30:50 GMT
References: <102ro4l$2cp6b$1@dont-email.me> <102u0qh$31qu3$2@dont-email.me> <mbggleFavh1U2@mid.individual.net>
Organization: Kithrup Enterprises, Ltd.
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In article <mbggleFavh1U2@mid.individual.net>,
Bernard Peek  <bap@shrdlu.com> wrote:
>On 2025-06-18, Gary McGath <garym@mcgath.com> wrote:
>> On 6/17/25 8:47 AM, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
>>> (Or "British Capitalisation of Acronyms for Organisations", if you prefer)
>>> 
>>> The Guardian and the BBC seem to write the abbreviation for "Immigration 
>>> and Customs Enforcement" as "Ice", rather than the "ICE" used in the US. 
>>>   But they abbreviate "United States" as "US", not "Us".
>>> 
>>> What's the rule here?  Is "North American Treaty Organization" written 
>>> as "Nato"?
>>> 
>>
>> I don't know if it's a rule, but I've seen other instances. British 
>> publications tend to refer to the World Health Organization as "The 
>> Who," which makes me think it's a music group.
>
>There are no universally accepted standards. 
>
>I was taught that if the abbreviation is usually pronounced as a word then
>only the first letter is capitalised as it is a proper-noun, but NATO is
>pronounced but is usually in all caps. WHO would be pronouncable but is
>invariably spoken as three separate words.
>
>We have a getout clause though. English spelling, grammar and punctuation
>rules are descriptive and not prescriptive despite what we are taught at
>school.

[Hal Heydt]
There is a usage between northern and southern California... In
southern California highway designation are given with a
preceding definite article (the I-5), whereas in northern
California, the article is not included.  You can tell when a
traffic reporter move north from L.A. because they'll include the
article.

One thing I've noticed in watching some video reports from the
war in Ukraine is that a British commentator (from the accent)
pronounces the Russian aircraft company designator as a word
(e.g.  Su-25 as Sue 25 or Tu-95 as Too 95), where other dialects
read them off as letters (such as Ess You 25 or Tee You 95). This
got mildly confusing in the reports about Ukraine's strikes on
Russian air bases when he referred to damage to a "Two
Twenty-two" (Tu-22).  Makes me wonder what he'd call an Me-262
or Bf-109.  Or even an Fi-103, if he knew what that was.