More from the NYT

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Mar 12, 2012, at 7:49 AM, Ben Zimmer wrote:

> "Nycha" is an artifact of the New York Times Style Guide, which
> dictates that "acronyms of five or more letters are
> upper-and-lowercased: _Unicef_; _Unesco_; _Alcoa_; _Awacs_."

just to remind people: this assumes, crucially, the distinction between _acronyms_ (which are pronounced as words on their own) and _initialisms_ (which are pronounced as sequences of letter names).  the NYT Style Guide treats these very differently -- correctly, though i think its insistence on periods in initialisms is ridiculous (i've called it "periodophilia" in my postings).

arnold

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