Re: AKICIF: British Capitalization of Acronyms for Organizations

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.


--
Bernard Peek
bap@shrdlu.com
Wigan