3 ms·

Yeah, I heard you can get those from I.B.M. :-P When your style guide requires you to misspell proper names, that's when you know it's total crap.

• mbreese 17y ago
  I.B.M. is the correct style for the company's name. Their official name is still International Business Machines. Therefore, it is an acronym and should be shown as such. "IBM" isn't the proper name of the company. You could argue that it's a marketing term (it's certainly a trademark). From my limited USPTO search, it looks like "IBM" wasn't even registered as a mark until 1990. U.S.B. is in the same boat... it's an acronym. If they really want to get the NYT on board, they'll have to change the name. Side note: this isn't the case with AT&T (anymore) as that is the company's official name. AT&T doesn't actually stand for anything (officially). I know it's pedantic, but if the New York Times stops caring about such things, who will?
  • jrockway 17y ago
    AT&T doesn't actually stand for anything Too bad they dropped the name completely; they could have just changed "telegraph" to "[wire]tap" and they would have been totally up to date.
  • CamperBob 17y ago
    (Shrug) The company doesn't write it that way, so neither should the New York Times.