Comments on: Logography

By: mighty red pen

mighty red pen — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:52:00 +0000

Since I frequently rely on Bill Walsh in these matters, it was his book I invoked in a recent conversation about whether to capitalize “Adidas” in one of our publications. There was a strong disposition to keep it “adidas” as it appears everywhere, but eventually, fueled by “Lapsing Into A Comma,” “Adidas” prevailed.

By: The Ridger

The Ridger — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:44:42 +0000

The Brits do that acronym thing – they’re always talking about Nato and Nasa and so on. You get used to it, but it’s confusing at first.

By: patrick

patrick — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:22:45 +0000

Wall-E seems to appeal more to the internet generation

By: Brinestone

Brinestone — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:35:36 +0000

I totally don’t agree with the AP on that, then. I think it’s important to know that each letter in NASA stands for something when you look at it—more important, anyway, than pointing out that you should pronounce it as a word instead of each individual letter. In my experience, people rarely mix up acronyms and initialisms (i.e., say “oo-sah” for USA or “ess-see-you-bee-ay” for SCUBA). But acronyms are spelled like actual words often enough that I can see confusion resulting from following that rule to the letter (couldn’t resist the pun, sorry).

By: Jonathon

Jonathon — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:56:00 +0000

If I understand correctly, the AP style guide says that acronyms should be lowercased (or just initial capped) while plain old initialisms get all caps. My gut reaction is that I don’t agree with that rule, but that may be material for another post.

By: rivka

rivka — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 06:09:39 +0000

But it’s an abbreviation, Bill.

By: Bill Walsh

Bill Walsh — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 04:41:39 +0000

And then there’s the capitalization issue. Unless it’s pronounced dubya-dubya-ay-el-el-ee, it’s Wall-E.