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A comment on Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'historic' space mission. Parent comment

Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by abrowne on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @09:16AM (#23246451)
UK style, and this article is from the Guardian, is to capitalize only the first letter of acronyms that are pronounced like words, "Nasa" and "Nato" being frequent examples. When each letter is pronounced (AKA an initialism), they capitalize each letter, such as for the WHO: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52294623
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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by et2o on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @09:27AM (#23246540)
Very interesting, thanks for this.

I find this practice very dumb. A huge amount of acronyms now have to be written like regular words.

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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by nkoren on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @09:30AM (#23246564)
Eh, Americans do it too, just less consistently. When's the last time you saw LASER?
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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by slimginz on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @10:28AM (#23247198)
I'd say things like laser are no longer the acronym they once were. How many people actually realize that laser is/was an acronym in the first place? The word itself has 'genericized' to the point that it's just a word to most people now.
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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by detritus on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @11:13AM (#23247839)
I could as well suggest the same about Nasa :) For all HNers that the distinction will be incredibly obvious, to Joe Schmo from Idaho, perhaps less so.
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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by rozab on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @11:20AM (#23247942)
I would imagine that most people don't know what NASA stands for. At this point it's just a word.
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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by viklove on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @11:12AM (#23247817)
Americans do not do this, when was the last time you saw Potus?
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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by Pfhreak on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @09:34AM (#23246605)
On the flip side, it disambiguates the pronunciation. BBC has each letter spoken individually, NASA does not.
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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by ry4nolson on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @10:22AM (#23247101)
"BBC" is not an acronym though, it's an initialism.
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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by Pfhreak on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @10:41AM (#23247375)
That's the point I was making, yes.
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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by cr3ative on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @10:29AM (#23247206)
And then you have brands like POLITICO who go and ruin it for everyone. I'm very glad we don't tolerate those case shenanigans.
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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by CodeGlitch on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @10:04AM (#23246878)
What really annoys me about the UK MSM is they'll write "COBRA", or even worse, "Cobra" for the COBR meetings.
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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by pbhjpbhj on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @10:34AM (#23247288)
COBRA is a nickname (not an acronym) for the Civil Contingencies Committee based on the meetings being in COBR (an initialism/acronym).

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/cobr-co...

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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by CodeGlitch on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @10:45AM (#23247432)
Everyday is a school day.

Thanks

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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by bovermyer on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @09:17AM (#23246457)
Aah, interesting. Thank you for clarifying!
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