Quite the opposite I'd say... in my experience, Lispers tend to say "Lisp" when they are being inclusive of the whole family of languages & its philosophies. This convention began way back in pre-Common Lisp days, when there was literally no common standard: much as we say "Unix" to refer to the family of related-but-different OS's that once proliferated.

Generally I've seen capitalized LISP used only to refer to the original language, from McCarthy's lab (e.g., versions 1 and 1.5). By the time Interlisp landed in the late 60's, the all-caps convention has already begun to slip.

That's not to disagree with your own experiences: I just suspect they are "regional", so to speak, and not reflective of the larger Lisp community.

> I just suspect they are "regional", so to speak, and not reflective of the larger Lisp community

yeah i think there is definitely a component of that which led to my claim. i think it is better that 'lisp' should refer to a whole family of languages when context is not obvious. even when context is clear it is helpful to distinguish what lisp one is talking about in order to avoid ambiguity