5 ms·

why is the BBC calling NATO Nato? I had to internet search to figure out what they were talking about

by kryogen1c 6y ago

bovermyer 6y ago
Spelling acronyms in title case instead of all uppercase is a British thing generally.
- oarsinsync 6y ago
  Not sure I agree with that. The BBC blog about their decision to use Nato (instead of NATO)[0] is from 2013, a month after their decision to make that change, and starts with: > Barely a week goes by without at least one BBC News website reader asking why acronyms are in lower case: ‘it should be NASA, not Nasa.’ I disagree that this is a British thing generally, and rather it's a conscious stylistic choice made by the BBC. If it was a British thing generally, it holds that there wouldn't have been a need for the blog post at all. I also don't think 7 years is enough time to bastardise a language (unless you're talking about a dialect, at which point it doesn't always take very long to literally destroy the meaning of words) [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7cf269-9ee1-341b-81a8-1ebfe73c80a0 https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7c...
vngzs 6y ago
https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art20130702112133530 https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art201307021121335... > Use the abbreviated form of a title without explanation only if there is no chance of any misunderstanding (eg UN, Nato, IRA, BBC). Otherwise, spell it out in full at first reference, or introduce a label (eg the public sector union Unite). > > Where you would normally say the abbreviation as a string of letters - an initialism - use all capitals with no full stops or spaces (eg FA, UNHCR, NUT). However, our style is to use lower case with an initial cap for acronyms, where you would normally pronounce the set of letters as a word (eg Aids, Farc, Eta, Nafta, Nasa, Opec, Apec). For the average reader, I would argue there is little chance of misinterpretation, and BBC certainly agrees. Besides that, because "NATO" is pronounced "nay-toh", they spell it with an initial cap.
- jhrmnn 6y ago
  Interesting. Is this really not confusing? I haven't seen it done elsewhere. I find it confusing just because of that. Their reasoning for why they do it seems actually reasonable. EDIT: Actually the fact that their rule is followed by a list of exceptions, because NICE -> Nice, SAD -> Sad would be confusing shows why this style might be not so good after all. Also, whereas N.A.T.O. -> NATO is really just a style change in some sense, because NATO can be still interpreted only as abbreviation, NATO -> Nato feels like stealing a part of the identity from the subject. NATO emphasizes some meaning behind the letters, whereas Nato resigns on that origin.
  - vngzs 6y ago
    Perhaps it's confusing to Americans, but it's common among the UK press: > Use all capitals if an abbreviation is pronounced as the individual letters (an initialism): BBC, CEO, US, VAT, etc; if it is an acronym (pronounced as a word) spell out with initial capital, eg Nasa, Nato, Unicef, unless it can be considered to have entered the language as an everyday word, such as awol, laser and, more recently, asbo, pin number and sim card. Note that pdf and plc are lowercase. https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-a https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-a It appears they are doing the equivalent of considering pronounced acronyms to be proper nouns. Despite the style ambiguity, it makes a bit of sense if you read the text aloud, as the style gives some indication of how to say the word.
- zeristor 6y ago
  Shouldn't that "Bbc" which looks odd to me?
  - detaro 6y ago
    How do you pronounce "Bbc" as a word, not as spelled-out letters?
    - gre 6y ago
      Beece
chrisseaton 6y ago
https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7cf269-9ee1-341b-81a8-1ebfe73c80a0 https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7c... It’s the house style to avoid too many capitals in prose. Remember how people used to write N.A.T.O. decades ago but then simplified to NATO? Now they’re simplifying to Nato.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > Remember how people used to write N.A.T.O. decades ago but then simplified to NATO? Now they’re simplifying to Nato. I wouldn't call it "simplifying": capitalizing it has the same number of characters and is less ambiguous. I was already somewhat aware of BBC's style, but I still mis-parsed the headline and and thought "Nato" was the name or nickname of a natural person.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    I don't understand - do you expect everything that isn't the name of a natural person to be written in all caps? If I write an article about how 'France is having a heatwave' do you get confused and think 'France' must be referring to a natural person?
    - jannyfer 6y ago
      In the article you linked: "We retain the middle cap in YouTube and MySpace because we think it prevents readers being confused by a word they are used to seeing in a particular way." I'm used to seeing NATO, and thought Nato might have been a political figure I hadn't heard of.
      - wutwutwutwut 6y ago
        After reading this article you weren't sure what Nato was referring to? And thought maybe it was a political figure? Sorry, I can't believe that.
        6y ago
shellac 6y ago
It's an initialism vs acronym thing: when the initials are treated as a word (e.g. NASA, but not BBC) you don't have to capitalise the whole thing (Hence 'Nasa' is ok). See https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7cf269-9ee1-341b-81a8-1ebfe73c80a0 https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7c... for an explanation.
- kryogen1c 6y ago
  > initialism vs acronym oh how interesting, ive never seen this debate before. I guess it confused because, internally, i dont treat acronyms as words. I dont think of NASA as Nasa or NATO as Nato, i find this counter-intuitive. to think out loud, this seems antithetical to what an acronym is in the first place. NASA is a pointer, not an object. creating a new object Nasa templated from the pointer NASA (not the object the pointer is referencing) makes my head hurt. the Bbc ( :-D ) does it, so apparently im the exception and not the normal.
  - oarsinsync 6y ago
    > the Bbc ( :-D ) does it, so apparently im the exception and not the normal. I assume the smiley indicates that you're aware that 'BBC' would actually be correct, and that 'Bbc' is not appropriate (because we say 'Bee Bee See', not 'Bubk'), unlike NATO/Nato ('Nay toe') Also, I prefer NATO over Nato personally. NATO reads 'Nay toe', while Nato reads 'Nat oh' in my head.
  - shellac 6y ago
    It's language evolution, in part. 'Radar' and 'scuba' are famous examples which have become regular names. At some point all-caps started to look pedantic, I suppose, or odd because their origin was not familiar to people.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jessaustin 6y ago
Every time I see this affected, illiterate spelling I initially read it as "nattō", the smelly fermented bean preparation.

why is the BBC calling NATO Nato? I had to internet search to figure out what they were talking about

bovermyer 6y ago

Spelling acronyms in title case instead of all uppercase is a British thing generally.

oarsinsync 6y ago
Not sure I agree with that. The BBC blog about their decision to use Nato (instead of NATO)[0] is from 2013, a month after their decision to make that change, and starts with: > Barely a week goes by without at least one BBC News website reader asking why acronyms are in lower case: ‘it should be NASA, not Nasa.’ I disagree that this is a British thing generally, and rather it's a conscious stylistic choice made by the BBC. If it was a British thing generally, it holds that there wouldn't have been a need for the blog post at all. I also don't think 7 years is enough time to bastardise a language (unless you're talking about a dialect, at which point it doesn't always take very long to literally destroy the meaning of words) [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7cf269-9ee1-341b-81a8-1ebfe73c80a0 https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7c...

vngzs 6y ago

https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art20130702112133530 https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art201307021121335... > Use the abbreviated form of a title without explanation only if there is no chance of any misunderstanding (eg UN, Nato, IRA, BBC). Otherwise, spell it out in full at first reference, or introduce a label (eg the public sector union Unite). > > Where you would normally say the abbreviation as a string of letters - an initialism - use all capitals with no full stops or spaces (eg FA, UNHCR, NUT). However, our style is to use lower case with an initial cap for acronyms, where you would normally pronounce the set of letters as a word (eg Aids, Farc, Eta, Nafta, Nasa, Opec, Apec). For the average reader, I would argue there is little chance of misinterpretation, and BBC certainly agrees. Besides that, because "NATO" is pronounced "nay-toh", they spell it with an initial cap.

jhrmnn 6y ago
Interesting. Is this really not confusing? I haven't seen it done elsewhere. I find it confusing just because of that. Their reasoning for why they do it seems actually reasonable. EDIT: Actually the fact that their rule is followed by a list of exceptions, because NICE -> Nice, SAD -> Sad would be confusing shows why this style might be not so good after all. Also, whereas N.A.T.O. -> NATO is really just a style change in some sense, because NATO can be still interpreted only as abbreviation, NATO -> Nato feels like stealing a part of the identity from the subject. NATO emphasizes some meaning behind the letters, whereas Nato resigns on that origin.
- vngzs 6y ago
  Perhaps it's confusing to Americans, but it's common among the UK press: > Use all capitals if an abbreviation is pronounced as the individual letters (an initialism): BBC, CEO, US, VAT, etc; if it is an acronym (pronounced as a word) spell out with initial capital, eg Nasa, Nato, Unicef, unless it can be considered to have entered the language as an everyday word, such as awol, laser and, more recently, asbo, pin number and sim card. Note that pdf and plc are lowercase. https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-a https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-a It appears they are doing the equivalent of considering pronounced acronyms to be proper nouns. Despite the style ambiguity, it makes a bit of sense if you read the text aloud, as the style gives some indication of how to say the word.
zeristor 6y ago
Shouldn't that "Bbc" which looks odd to me?
- detaro 6y ago
  How do you pronounce "Bbc" as a word, not as spelled-out letters?
  - gre 6y ago
    Beece

chrisseaton 6y ago

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7cf269-9ee1-341b-81a8-1ebfe73c80a0 https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7c... It’s the house style to avoid too many capitals in prose. Remember how people used to write N.A.T.O. decades ago but then simplified to NATO? Now they’re simplifying to Nato.

ardy42 6y ago
> Remember how people used to write N.A.T.O. decades ago but then simplified to NATO? Now they’re simplifying to Nato. I wouldn't call it "simplifying": capitalizing it has the same number of characters and is less ambiguous. I was already somewhat aware of BBC's style, but I still mis-parsed the headline and and thought "Nato" was the name or nickname of a natural person.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  I don't understand - do you expect everything that isn't the name of a natural person to be written in all caps? If I write an article about how 'France is having a heatwave' do you get confused and think 'France' must be referring to a natural person?
  - jannyfer 6y ago
    In the article you linked: "We retain the middle cap in YouTube and MySpace because we think it prevents readers being confused by a word they are used to seeing in a particular way." I'm used to seeing NATO, and thought Nato might have been a political figure I hadn't heard of.
    - wutwutwutwut 6y ago
      After reading this article you weren't sure what Nato was referring to? And thought maybe it was a political figure? Sorry, I can't believe that.
      - 6y ago

shellac 6y ago

It's an initialism vs acronym thing: when the initials are treated as a word (e.g. NASA, but not BBC) you don't have to capitalise the whole thing (Hence 'Nasa' is ok). See https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7cf269-9ee1-341b-81a8-1ebfe73c80a0 https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7c... for an explanation.

kryogen1c 6y ago
> initialism vs acronym oh how interesting, ive never seen this debate before. I guess it confused because, internally, i dont treat acronyms as words. I dont think of NASA as Nasa or NATO as Nato, i find this counter-intuitive. to think out loud, this seems antithetical to what an acronym is in the first place. NASA is a pointer, not an object. creating a new object Nasa templated from the pointer NASA (not the object the pointer is referencing) makes my head hurt. the Bbc ( :-D ) does it, so apparently im the exception and not the normal.
- oarsinsync 6y ago
  > the Bbc ( :-D ) does it, so apparently im the exception and not the normal. I assume the smiley indicates that you're aware that 'BBC' would actually be correct, and that 'Bbc' is not appropriate (because we say 'Bee Bee See', not 'Bubk'), unlike NATO/Nato ('Nay toe') Also, I prefer NATO over Nato personally. NATO reads 'Nay toe', while Nato reads 'Nat oh' in my head.
- shellac 6y ago
  It's language evolution, in part. 'Radar' and 'scuba' are famous examples which have become regular names. At some point all-caps started to look pedantic, I suppose, or odd because their origin was not familiar to people.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jessaustin 6y ago

Every time I see this affected, illiterate spelling I initially read it as "nattō", the smelly fermented bean preparation.