Posts filed under 'capitalization'
January 5th, 2010
The initialism RSVP means “please reply,” not “make a reservation.”
Apparently the latter usage is actually gaining some traction in American English, but it’s too loose for my taste. Maybe that’s because I took French in high school.
The letters in RSVP come from the French phrase “repondez s’il vous plait,” literally, “answer if it pleases you.”
You could make a reservation by way of an RSVP, but you would have to be invited first.
If you need short phrase for “make a reservation,” how about “sign up” or “book”?
“RSVP” is an initialism, not an acronym, because it’s pronounced by sounding each letter, not as a word.
An example of an acronym is “SEAL,” as in Navy SEAL.
The SEALs are a special operations force. The letters in the acronym come from “sea, air, land.”
A “Navy Seal” could be some kind of insignia, and a “Navy seal” might be a character in an old (and bad) TV comedy. But you need all caps for the special forces unit.
June 8th, 2009
Rockford’s new school superintendent is working on who will be members of her Cabinet.
Associated Press style is to capitalize any Cabinet that’s made of people, from the presidential one on down.
This is to distinguish it from the kind of cabinet that is a piece of storage equipment. That one is lowercase. Even if you had a really large cabinet and people lived in it, it would be lowercase.
And when they left it, that wouldn’t be the same as coming out of the closet.
December 19th, 2008
From cancer and heart disease to the common cold, the names of diseases, disorders, syndromes and other afflictions are generally lowercase.
For those that contain an element that’s a proper name, capitalize only that element: Asian flu, Down syndrome, German measles, Legionnaires’ disease, etc.
Some names are commonly expressed in acronyms or initialisms. Those are written in all caps: AIDS, SIDS and so on. This is conventional style, and also prevents possible confusion with another word — AIDS and aids, SAD and sad, for example.
October 17th, 2008
The previous week it was a medical issue. This past week I was on vacation. But now I’m back and raring to blog.
While I was away, a reader called to complain about a headline in which “fall,” the season, was not capitalized and said she was taught otherwise in school. Unfortunately, that’s probably ture.
Capitalization is an issue often determined by “house rules,” and in our own little worlds we tend to use uppercase for what we think is important. If a teacher wants you to capitalize the seasons, you probably should — while you’re in that classroom. In the big, bad outside world, however, “spring,” “summer,” “fall” or “autumn,” and “winter” are generally lowercase.
In fact, writing “the Fall” could be interpreted as referring to the concept in Christian theology of “the Fall of Man” — “Adam’s sin of yielding to temptation in eating the forbidden fruit, and his subsequent loss of grace.” Now that’s a term deserving of the big-letter treatment.
September 3rd, 2008
There are many named gulfs around the world, from the Gulf of Aden to the Gulf of Venice, but two are so widely known that each can be referred to after first reference as “the Gulf” — the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Mexico.
Another thing they have in common, of course, is oil — which is why they’re in the news frequently. That and storms and wars.
Other gulfs come and go in the spotlight, but no other gulf rates this capitalized treatment.
The word “gulf” can be traced back to the Greek “kolpos,” which also meant “a fold” or “bosom.”
In addition to a large body of water, a gulf can be an eddy or whirlpool, or “a wide, deep chasm or abyss,” or “a wide or impassable gap or separation,” literal or figurative.
As a verb, “gulf” means to swallow. A more common verb is “engulf” for “to swallow up; overwhelm” or “to plunge, as into a gulf.”
The history of the Mideast has shown that it’s easy for nations to get engulfed in the Gulf.
