Proper capitalization of commonly used acronyms


I was always under impression, that acronyms ought to be written all caps. However reading BBC News site very often I see some of the common acronyms written as proper names (first cap). For example "Nato" instead of "NATO".


I know that BBC is quite strict in proper English usage, so what would be the reason behind this?



Answer



The BBC is not as rigid about these matters as some other bodies. For example, it was recently written that the BBC had standardised on "CE" rather than "AD" for denoting years -- but in fact the BBC simply doesn't have a set of rigid standards for such things.


The Guardian Style Guide, however, states:



Use all capitals if an abbreviation is pronounced as the individual letters: BBC, VAT, etc; if it is an acronym (pronounced as a word) spell out with initial capital, eg Nasa, Nato, unless it can be considered to have entered the language as an everyday word, such as awol, laser and, more recently, asbo, pin number and sim card. Note that pdf and plc are lowercase.



There is no universal rule; the Guardian's style guide is just one set of rules you can choose. The important thing is to be consistent.


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