Difference between revisions of "User talk:Winelight"

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::That's the way it's been all along and I'm not a fan of change for the sake of change.  More to the point, to change it to lowercase except for the initial capital is just plain wrong.  Regardless of how you feel about periods in an acronym, you certainly wouldn't write "Nasa" or "Fbi". My initial reply simply refuted Winelight's claim (in the page's edit history) that "[a]n acronym is a word, and not a collection of capital letters with full stops" as his/her justification for changing it to something far less correct. It's really a moot point now, anyway. That's all I have to say on the subject. I'm not here to provide English lessons or to do others' research for them. --&nbsp;[[User:Brossow|B.Rossow]]&nbsp;<sup style='margin-right:-11px'>[[User_talk:Brossow|talk]]</sup><sub>[[Special:Contributions/Brossow|contr]]</sub> 15:14, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 
::That's the way it's been all along and I'm not a fan of change for the sake of change.  More to the point, to change it to lowercase except for the initial capital is just plain wrong.  Regardless of how you feel about periods in an acronym, you certainly wouldn't write "Nasa" or "Fbi". My initial reply simply refuted Winelight's claim (in the page's edit history) that "[a]n acronym is a word, and not a collection of capital letters with full stops" as his/her justification for changing it to something far less correct. It's really a moot point now, anyway. That's all I have to say on the subject. I'm not here to provide English lessons or to do others' research for them. --&nbsp;[[User:Brossow|B.Rossow]]&nbsp;<sup style='margin-right:-11px'>[[User_talk:Brossow|talk]]</sup><sub>[[Special:Contributions/Brossow|contr]]</sub> 15:14, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
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FBI is not an acronym, it's an initialism. That's a false analagy. --[[User:Winelight|Winelight]] 15:52, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Revision as of 15:52, 20 August 2009

Acronyms, punctuation, and editing

Before you decide to act authoritatively and revert other people's edits, please be sure you know what you're talking about. (As for me, I've got a degree with honors in English education.) From one of countless references, the "Guide to Grammar and Writing":

"It appears that there are no hard and fast rules for using periods in either acronyms or abbreviations." [1]

Please do a little more research before using your opinions, and not facts, to change other people's work. Thanks. -- B.Rossow talkcontr 12:29, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Brossow, you are quite wrong on this point. --Winelight 13:17, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
I could go on, but there's no point. I've already cited numerous sources and you're going to believe whatever you already believe. Bottom line is it's a stylistic choice, not a rule written in stone. Don't make changes just to suit your personal preferences. Feel free to have the final word on the subject. -- B.Rossow talkcontr 13:58, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't understand the first B.Rossow's comment (didn't have time to read the second one yet): if as the quote says there are no hard and fast rules for using periods in acronyms of abbreviations, then why do you authoritatively insist on them? That's just about as artbitrary as you seem to think Winelight's changes were...
What that quote indicates to me, is that if there are no hard and fast rules, then it might be better to follow the common usage, which is how it works in English. And common usage is Acronym (although personally I prefer ACRONYM - capitalized but without periods).
Furthermore, reading the quote in context, it says right afterwards: "More and more, newspapers and journals seem to drop the periods." Again, it indicates that it's now a very common practice to drop the periods.
To Winelight, could you please move the rest of your arguments here too, to keep all the discussion in one place? -- Camomiletea 14:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
That's the way it's been all along and I'm not a fan of change for the sake of change. More to the point, to change it to lowercase except for the initial capital is just plain wrong. Regardless of how you feel about periods in an acronym, you certainly wouldn't write "Nasa" or "Fbi". My initial reply simply refuted Winelight's claim (in the page's edit history) that "[a]n acronym is a word, and not a collection of capital letters with full stops" as his/her justification for changing it to something far less correct. It's really a moot point now, anyway. That's all I have to say on the subject. I'm not here to provide English lessons or to do others' research for them. -- B.Rossow talkcontr 15:14, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

FBI is not an acronym, it's an initialism. That's a false analagy. --Winelight 15:52, 20 August 2009 (UTC)