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CyberCypher
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2004 11:44 am
Post subject: Re: Capitals and acronyms (was: Re: Incidences -- Now part o |
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Steve Hayes wrote on 29 Sep 2004:
| Quote: | On 29 Sep 2004 03:11:20 GMT, CyberCypher
cybercypher@19-16-25-13-01-03.com> wrote:
Steve Hayes wrote on 29 Sep 2004:
On 28 Sep, CyberCypher wrote:
[...]
I write HIV/Aids, because Aids is an acronym.
Yeah, but the medical profession and its editors and publishers
use "AIDS", acronym or no. That's because "Aids" and "aids" are
recognizable words with their own meaning. There are exceptions
to every rule.
Most of our newspapers, however, say HIV/Aids, using *their*
house style.
The media are no respecters of anyone else's style. They pretty
much do with the language what they want because they can.
I read them, not the specialised medical media
And I read the specialized medical media, not because I prefer
medical reporters to the reports in the normal media, but because
I have to and because I am obliged to follow their style rules.
Well, that's the way it works.
If you don't follow their style rules, they'll either not publish
your stuff, or, if they really want it, their copyeditor will edit
it according to the rules.
(most of whom are in the pay of drug companies anyway).
And drug companies make lots more money when people spell AIDS all
in caps than when they spell it "Aids". Good point. I'll have to
remember that one, Steve.
I'm beginning to understand the term "readerly".[1]
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I don't know. Barthes's ideas about this are prima facie confusing and
contradictory. It's as if he wants his readers to believe that nothing
--- especially language and litereature --- is what it seems to be.
http://www.mala.bc.ca/~soules/eng315/textbook/garside/hyper.htm
"In the readerly text, the writer is in control. If we take a novel or
academic text in the classical sense, then the reader is at the mercy
of whomever wrote the material to lead them through it in an
interesting and engaging manner. Direction is everything in the
readerly text. It is imperative for the author to write the text in a
progression of ideas that leads the reader, who follows in the hope of
maintaining coherence.
"In the writerly text, the aspect of choice takes precedence over
direction. A classic example of a paper version of a writerly text is
the genre of Choose Your Own Adventure. In this genre, it is the reader
who basically writes the book. The reader writes the book because the
story is non-linear. The author has less control over the direction the
reader takes, so the reader is figuratively writing the story. Landow
quotes from Roland Barthes’ book S/Z saying that 'the goal of literary
work (of literature as work) is to make the reader no longer a
consumer, but a producer of the text.'"
http://smgct.typepad.com/spinning/2004/09/new_media_think.html
Barthes' (S/Z) Writerly Reading/Writing versus Readerly Reading/Writing
can be applied to these statements:
She wore a red dress.[2]
She wore a dress the color of blood.[3]
===
My notes:
[1] "(most of whom are in the pay of drug companies anyway)".
This is obviously non sequitur. Even if your charge that most medical
media, publishers, editors, reporters, and authors are in the pay of
the drug companies were true, that would still not have anything to do
with the way "AIDS" is spelt by those entities and individuals.
Certainly, some journals are in the pay of the drug companies. They
hype pharmaceuticals. One professor I work for occasionally writes
articles that she clearly states were funded by a drug company, but she
doesn't always demonstrate that the company's product provides the
desired results.
[2] This is obviously writerly because it puts the reader in control of
what shade of red is meant, not a bad thing when the detail is
insignificant.
[3] This is obviously readerly because it puts the writer in control by
imposing restrictions on the reader's imagination, which is sometimes
necessary for the plot or the symbolism the writer wants to create with
words.
--
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
For email, replace numbers with English alphabet.
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Peter Duncanson
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2004 6:10 pm
Post subject: Re: Capitals and acronyms (was: Re: Incidences -- Now part o |
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On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 03:02:32 GMT, hayesmstw@hotmail.com (Steve Hayes) wrote:
| Quote: | On 28 Sep 2004 06:13:00 -0700, georgeh@ankerstein.org (George Hardy) wrote:
Or, correctly, AIDS, NATO, USINA, BBC and USA.
Or, even more correctly, A.I.D.S, N.A.T.O., dunno what USINA is, B.B.C. and
U.S.A.
|
Those are not necessarily correct. The use of "dots" seems now to be
exception rather than the rule, even in the U.S.A. - CIO, IBM, CIA, FBI,
DHS, and thousands of others.
U.S.A. and U.S. are used except when USA and US are used. The CIA World
Factbook says:
"conventional long form: United States of America
conventional short form: United States
abbreviation: US or USA"
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html
(This might be a case of the CIA accepting that outside the U.S. the
convention is for dotfree initialisms.)
Appendix A, Abbreviations, of the CIA World Factbook lists 272 initialisms,
of which only 3 include dots:
the commercial terms (how many centuries do these go back?)
"c.i.f. cost, insurance, and freight",
"f.o.b. free on board",
and the politically sensitive
"F.Y.R.O.M. The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia".
When the form U.S. is used it seems usual for the dots to be dropped if the
letters form part of another initialism. For example:
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (UCSIS).
http://uscis.gov/graphics/index.htm
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
http://www.usaid.gov/
Other dotless examples:
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
http://www.nato.int/
United Nations (UN)
http://www.un.org/english/index.shtml
European Union (EU)
http://europa.eu.int/index_en.htm
The above use the dotfree convention for the initialisms of their component
parts, etc.
--
Peter Duncanson
UK (posting from a.e.u) |
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Peter Duncanson
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2004 10:43 pm
Post subject: Re: Capitals and acronyms (was: Re: Incidences -- Now part o |
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On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 13:10:29 +0100, Peter Duncanson
<mail@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
| Quote: | On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 03:02:32 GMT, hayesmstw@hotmail.com (Steve Hayes) wrote:
On 28 Sep 2004 06:13:00 -0700, georgeh@ankerstein.org (George Hardy) wrote:
Or, correctly, AIDS, NATO, USINA, BBC and USA.
Or, even more correctly, A.I.D.S, N.A.T.O., dunno what USINA is, B.B.C. and
U.S.A.
snip my comments |
The New York Times uses I.B.M. in spite of the company itself using IBM.
--
Peter Duncanson
UK (posting from a.e.u)
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Robin Bignall
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 2:07 am
Post subject: Re: Capitals and acronyms (was: Re: Incidences -- Now part o |
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On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 17:43:19 +0100, Peter Duncanson
<mail@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
| Quote: | On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 13:10:29 +0100, Peter Duncanson
mail@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 03:02:32 GMT, hayesmstw@hotmail.com (Steve Hayes) wrote:
On 28 Sep 2004 06:13:00 -0700, georgeh@ankerstein.org (George Hardy) wrote:
Or, correctly, AIDS, NATO, USINA, BBC and USA.
Or, even more correctly, A.I.D.S, N.A.T.O., dunno what USINA is, B.B.C. and
U.S.A.
snip my comments
The New York Times uses I.B.M. in spite of the company itself using IBM.
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As a matter of interest, IBM became 'International Business Machines'
in 1923 or 24 (IBM has both dates on different pages of its site) with
a cluttered logo:
http://www-1.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/logo/logo_5.html
which became the simpler 'IBM', without periods, in 1947.
http://www-1.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/logo/logo_6.html
--
wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall
Hertfordshire
England |
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Steve Hayes
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 8:03 am
Post subject: Re: Capitals and acronyms (was: Re: Incidences -- Now part o |
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On 29 Sep 2004 05:44:41 GMT, CyberCypher <cybercypher@19-16-25-13-01-03.com>
wrote:
| Quote: | Steve Hayes wrote on 29 Sep 2004:
On 29 Sep 2004 03:11:20 GMT, CyberCypher
cybercypher@19-16-25-13-01-03.com> wrote:
Steve Hayes wrote on 29 Sep 2004:
On 28 Sep, CyberCypher wrote:
[...]
I write HIV/Aids, because Aids is an acronym.
Yeah, but the medical profession and its editors and publishers
use "AIDS", acronym or no. That's because "Aids" and "aids" are
recognizable words with their own meaning. There are exceptions
to every rule.
Most of our newspapers, however, say HIV/Aids, using *their*
house style.
The media are no respecters of anyone else's style. They pretty
much do with the language what they want because they can.
I read them, not the specialised medical media
And I read the specialized medical media, not because I prefer
medical reporters to the reports in the normal media, but because
I have to and because I am obliged to follow their style rules.
Well, that's the way it works.
If you don't follow their style rules, they'll either not publish
your stuff, or, if they really want it, their copyeditor will edit
it according to the rules.
(most of whom are in the pay of drug companies anyway).
And drug companies make lots more money when people spell AIDS all
in caps than when they spell it "Aids". Good point. I'll have to
remember that one, Steve.
I'm beginning to understand the term "readerly".[1]
I don't know. Barthes's ideas about this are prima facie confusing and
contradictory. It's as if he wants his readers to believe that nothing
--- especially language and litereature --- is what it seems to be.
http://www.mala.bc.ca/~soules/eng315/textbook/garside/hyper.htm
"In the readerly text, the writer is in control. If we take a novel or
academic text in the classical sense, then the reader is at the mercy
of whomever wrote the material to lead them through it in an
interesting and engaging manner. Direction is everything in the
readerly text. It is imperative for the author to write the text in a
progression of ideas that leads the reader, who follows in the hope of
maintaining coherence.
"In the writerly text, the aspect of choice takes precedence over
direction. A classic example of a paper version of a writerly text is
the genre of Choose Your Own Adventure. In this genre, it is the reader
who basically writes the book. The reader writes the book because the
story is non-linear. The author has less control over the direction the
reader takes, so the reader is figuratively writing the story. Landow
quotes from Roland Barthes’ book S/Z saying that 'the goal of literary
work (of literature as work) is to make the reader no longer a
consumer, but a producer of the text.'"
|
I retract.
| Quote: | ===
My notes:
[1] "(most of whom are in the pay of drug companies anyway)".
This is obviously non sequitur. Even if your charge that most medical
media, publishers, editors, reporters, and authors are in the pay of
the drug companies were true, that would still not have anything to do
with the way "AIDS" is spelt by those entities and individuals.
Certainly, some journals are in the pay of the drug companies. They
hype pharmaceuticals. One professor I work for occasionally writes
articles that she clearly states were funded by a drug company, but she
doesn't always demonstrate that the company's product provides the
desired results.
|
Not a non-sequitur, a parenthesis.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk |
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Steve Hayes
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 8:03 am
Post subject: Re: Capitals and acronyms (was: Re: Incidences -- Now part o |
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On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 00:21:19 -0500, "Raymond S. Wise"
<mplsrayNOSPAM@gbronline.com> wrote:
| Quote: | "Steve Hayes" <hayesmstw@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:415a241b.175006665@news.saix.net...
On 28 Sep 2004 06:13:00 -0700, georgeh@ankerstein.org (George Hardy)
wrote:
Or, correctly, AIDS, NATO, USINA, BBC and USA.
Or, even more correctly, A.I.D.S, N.A.T.O., dunno what USINA is, B.B.C.
and
U.S.A.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop
uk
How can <A.I.D.S.> be correct if no one uses it?
It's not possible to search for <A.I.D.S.> on Google by itself: Such a
search turns up hits for <AIDS> (and I imagine <Aids> and <aids>). But
better than a search on Google is a search via www.onelook.com for
dictionary entries (well, Onelook.com calls them "dictionaries," but some of
them are encyclopedias, some glossaries). None of the entries had <A.I.D.S.
as a variant spelling. The *Compact Oxford English Dictionary* at
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/aids?view=uk
lists only <Aids>, while the *Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary* at
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=1770&dict=CALD
has both <AIDS> and <Aids>. The *Cambridge Dictionary of American English*
at
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=aids*1+0&dict=A
has only <AIDS>.
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I was responding to someone who maintained that both acronyms and initialisms
should be capitalised without stops, and that that was the only correct form.
A modern tendency is to capitalise only the first letter of acronyms, but
there was a time when both acronyms and initialisms were capitalised with
stops in between.
I was pointing out that if one went on the principle that the older form was
the corecter form, then the oldest form must be the correctest.
In this case, however the way of writing an acronym is a parameter of the
house style of the publisher concerned at the time it is published.
Publishers have been known to change their house styles, and when they do, it
is usually to drop stops and upper case letters. I've known very few that have
changed theirs by adding those things.
So all three are "correct", but the correctest is the one that first the house
style, which is usually constant for one publisher, at least for a short time,
but may vary with other publishers.
It was about 7 years ago that we changed Ph.D. to PhD, and about 15 years ago
that we changed NATO to Nato.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk |
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