When to use smallcaps for acronyms?
Charlie Zender
I'm honing a document which contains a multitude of acronyms,
i.e., collections of capital letters that usually each abbreviate
an entire word (e.g., DARPA or IBM).
Some periodicals, like the Economist, print acronyms in smallcaps.
Some books, like Kopka and Daly's LaTeX manual, set acronyms in
regular type. Is this just a matter of personal preference or are
there some guidelines when to, and when not to, set acronyms in
smallcaps font?
As an informal poll, vote for the appearance you prefer:
1. UNIX
2. \textsc{unix}
3. \textsc{Unix}
Thanks,
Charlie
--
Charlie Zender zen...@uci.edu (949) 824-2987/FAX-3256, Department of
Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine CA 92697-3100
Tim Vanhoof
> I'm honing a document which contains a multitude of acronyms,
> i.e., collections of capital letters that usually each abbreviate
> an entire word (e.g., DARPA or IBM).
> Some periodicals, like the Economist, print acronyms in smallcaps.
> Some books, like Kopka and Daly's LaTeX manual, set acronyms in
> regular type. Is this just a matter of personal preference or are
> there some guidelines when to, and when not to, set acronyms in
> smallcaps font?
Setting acronyms in small caps is a lot of work for little reward.
It gives your pages a more even grey appearance and the eye is not
distracted by capitals popping up everywhere.
Unless the font you're using actually possesses proper small caps,
though, there's not much point.
> As an informal poll, vote for the appearance you prefer:
>
> 1. UNIX
> 2. \textsc{unix}
^^^^^^^^
> 3. \textsc{Unix}
Paul Stanley
> I'm honing a document which contains a multitude of acronyms,
> i.e., collections of capital letters that usually each abbreviate
> an entire word (e.g., DARPA or IBM).
> Some periodicals, like the Economist, print acronyms in smallcaps.
> Some books, like Kopka and Daly's LaTeX manual, set acronyms in
> regular type. Is this just a matter of personal preference or are
> there some guidelines when to, and when not to, set acronyms in
> smallcaps font?
I think it's just a matter of personal preference. The reason is that
caps tend to make an uneven page. (As do figures, hence oldstyle
digits.) If there are lots of lining figures which are going to mess up
the flow of the lines anyway, it's probably not worth it. And it's
certainly not worth it unless you have real small caps. Most writers on
book typography seem to favour small caps. Most commercial organisations
love full caps, because of course they really think their acronyms
deserve to soar above the rest of the text. Sometimes they even demand
ghastly VIP treatment, like . . . \LaTeX.
The conventional (English) thing is to use smallcaps (if at all) for all
acronyms, except two word acronyms for countries (UK not \textsc{uk}).
Some people avoid them for all two letter acronyms, but others use them
(e.g. \textsc{am} or Walter Butcher \textsc{md}).
> As an informal poll, vote for the appearance you prefer:
>
> 1. UNIX
> 2. \textsc{unix}
> 3. \textsc{Unix}
None of the above. I'd use Unix (u+lc), because I think it's lost its
acronym status and become, in effect, a normal noun (albeit a proper
noun). I don't care what purists say: the people who invent acronyms,
having launched them into the world, are not entitled to continue to
dictate how they will be written once they grow up into words.
But if I had to choose one of your options I'd choose either 1 or 2,
consistently with the way acronyms are used in the rest of the document. 3
seems to me to be a bastard form of my own preference: treating Unix as an
ordinary word but covering its modesty in a thin veil of cappiness.
--
Paul Stanley
Essex Court Chambers, 24 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3ED
Charlie Zender
Yes, Unix was a snafu on my part
since it has changed through usage :)
Charlie Zender
> Charlie Zender <zen...@removethisspamblock.uci.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
>>I'm honing a document which contains a multitude of acronyms,
>>i.e., collections of capital letters that usually each abbreviate
>>an entire word (e.g., DARPA or IBM).
>>Some periodicals, like the Economist, print acronyms in smallcaps.
>>Some books, like Kopka and Daly's LaTeX manual, set acronyms in
>>regular type. Is this just a matter of personal preference or are
>>there some guidelines when to, and when not to, set acronyms in
>>smallcaps font?
>>
>
> Setting acronyms in small caps is a lot of work for little reward.
>
> It gives your pages a more even grey appearance and the eye is not
> distracted by capitals popping up everywhere.
>
> Unless the font you're using actually possesses proper small caps,
> though, there's not much point.
I'm just an ordinary Latex user. The fonts I use always seem to have
small caps. But now you've got me worried that if I ever change from
computer modern to, say, Times, then everything I've set in small caps
will come out in lowercase. If a smallcap font is not available
then will Latex convert \textsc{ibm} to IBM or to ibm?
Thanks,
Charlie
>
>
>>As an informal poll, vote for the appearance you prefer:
>>
>>1. UNIX
>>
>
>
>>2. \textsc{unix}
>>
> ^^^^^^^^
>
>
>>3. \textsc{Unix}
>>
--
Bob Tennent
>1. UNIX
>2. \textsc{unix}
>3. \textsc{Unix}
I use small caps for pronounceable words, especially if it is an actual word or
name (Algol, Pascal) and full caps for real acronyms (ML). I would say Unix is
more the former than the latter, but UNIX is the official trademark and this
has to take priority.
Bob T.
Lucian Wischik
>Some periodicals, like the Economist, print acronyms in smallcaps.
>Some books, like Kopka and Daly's LaTeX manual, set acronyms in
>regular type.
I happened to read Le Monde Diplomatique (in french!) recently. For almost
all of their acronyms, they used Proper Noun Capitalisation. Thus: Opec,
Nato, Unicef, Oecd, Aids. (but being french they gave initial letters of
the french title of the organisation, so Otan and Sida rather than Nato
and Aids.) I thought it looked great.
--
Lucian Wischik, Queens' College, Cambridge CB3 9ET. www.wischik.com/lu
sL
> Hi,
>
> I'm honing a document which contains a multitude of acronyms,
> i.e., collections of capital letters that usually each abbreviate
> an entire word (e.g., DARPA or IBM).
> Some periodicals, like the Economist, print acronyms in smallcaps.
> Some books, like Kopka and Daly's LaTeX manual, set acronyms in
> regular type. Is this just a matter of personal preference or are
> there some guidelines when to, and when not to, set acronyms in
> smallcaps font?
>
> As an informal poll, vote for the appearance you prefer:
>
> 1. UNIX
> 2. \textsc{unix}
> 3. \textsc{Unix}
>
Hi,
first, I'm surprised by your example: "UNIX" does not seem to be
an acronym, but simply a trademark ou brand name, which makes your
poll strange to me :)
Therefore, I would *not* capitalize "unix" ! May be the first letter, as you
can consider it as a proper name.
Second, there is a distinction between an acronym and an abbreviation:
the acronym is an abbreviation that is pronounced as a word, and not spelled
letter-by-letter (I hope i'm clear: USA is an abbreviation, NATO is an
acronym). In french, both should be typeset with small caps, but the acronym
comes with the first letter capitalized.
In english, as far as I know (source: practical english usage, by Michael
Swan), you capitalize all the letters (small caps?), and you can even write it
with full stops (e.g. I.R.A.), although it is bulky and not very common. I
could not found any reference to capitalizing only the first letter, even on
acronyms that are proper names (e.g. NATO).
Hope this helps,
sL
----
Excuse my french...it's my mother tongue.
Robin Fairbairns
>On Tue, 22 May 2001, Charlie Zender wrote:
>
>> As an informal poll, vote for the appearance you prefer:
>>
>> 1. UNIX
>> 2. \textsc{unix}
>> 3. \textsc{Unix}
>
>None of the above. I'd use Unix (u+lc), because I think it's lost its
>acronym status and become, in effect, a normal noun (albeit a proper
>noun). I don't care what purists say: the people who invent acronyms,
>having launched them into the world, are not entitled to continue to
>dictate how they will be written once they grow up into words.
i'm a bit bemused by the example, too: since i first heard of it, in a
(early 70s) sosp paper on unix (my then boss has yet to miss an sosp,
which is how i came to read the paper), i've assumed people thought of
it as a word rather than an acronym. iirc, multics, which unix
borrowed ideas from, was one of those "artificial" acronyms, but
no-one's ever explained a derivation of unix as one.
fwiw, barbara beeton specified a not-quite-small caps variant for use
in tugboat: in essence, my code for that is
\usepackage{relsize}
\def\acro#1{\textsmaller{#1}\@}
...
\acro{TUG} conferences aren't much like
\acro{SOSP}s.
--
Robin Fairbairns, Cambridge
Robin Fairbairns
>Tim Vanhoof wrote:
>> Unless the font you're using actually possesses proper small caps,
>> though, there's not much point.
>
>I'm just an ordinary Latex user. The fonts I use always seem to have
>small caps. But now you've got me worried that if I ever change from
>computer modern to, say, Times, then everything I've set in small caps
>will come out in lowercase. If a smallcap font is not available
>then will Latex convert \textsc{ibm} to IBM or to ibm?
1. the psnfss fakes a small caps font for things like times. it's not
terribly good (in typographic terms) but it's just about passable.
2. if there really is no sc shape available for the font you're using,
you'll get whinges if you say \textsc{ibm}, which ought to alert you
to the problem.
3. if you're willing to shell out the money, there's almost certainly
a times expert set you can buy, which will offer "proper" small caps.
personally, i wouldn't bother, for a font like times: if i was going
for that sort of quality, i'ld choose a more pleasing face, pay a bit
more and get a complete family...
--
Robin Fairbairns, Cambridge
Maurizio Loreti
> On Tue, 22 May 2001, Charlie Zender wrote:
> ...
> > As an informal poll, vote for the appearance you prefer:
> >
> > 1. UNIX
> > 2. \textsc{unix}
> > 3. \textsc{Unix}
> >
>
> Hi,
>
> first, I'm surprised by your example: "UNIX" does not seem to be
> an acronym, but simply a trademark ou brand name, which makes your
> poll strange to me :)
> Therefore, I would *not* capitalize "unix" ! May be the first letter, as you
> can consider it as a proper name.
Yes; the original name was a pun on the name of another widespread OS,
``Multics'', and was spelled ``Unics''; but become almost immediately
``Unix'' (note the capitalisations).
According to Dennis Ritchie, the spelling ``UNIX'' "... originally
happened in CACM's 1974 paper 'The UNIX Time-Sharing System'
... [because] we had a new typesetter and 'troff' had just been
invented and we were intoxicated by being able to produce small caps."
So, respect DMR's and Ken's original intoxication --- and use
\textsc{unix} :-)
--
Maurizio Loreti http://www.pd.infn.it/~loreti/mlo.html
Univ. of Padova, Dept. of Physics - Padova, Italy lor...@pd.infn.it
The instructions said to use Windows 98 or better - so I installed FreeBSD.
Philip Schuler
Charlie Zender <zen...@removethisspamblock.uci.edu> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I'm honing a document which contains a multitude of acronyms,
>i.e., collections of capital letters that usually each abbreviate
>an entire word (e.g., DARPA or IBM).
>Some periodicals, like the Economist, print acronyms in smallcaps.
>Some books, like Kopka and Daly's LaTeX manual, set acronyms in
>regular type. Is this just a matter of personal preference or are
>there some guidelines when to, and when not to, set acronyms in
>smallcaps font?
Check a publication/style manual for rules or generally accepted
conventions. The Chicago Manual of Style, for example, prescribes small
caps for titles or chapter/section headings and for chronological
identifiers like A.D., B.C. and the like, but full caps for abbreviations
of organizations (whether or not they are acronymns), academic degrees and
just about anything else.
Of course, if the font you're using doesn't actually have true small
capitals (imitation typewriter fonts shouldn't; some italic or boldface
fotns don't), the issue is moot.
Chris Boyd
: Charlie Zender <zen...@removethisspamblock.uci.edu> wrote:
:>Some periodicals, like the Economist, print acronyms in smallcaps.
:>Some books, like Kopka and Daly's LaTeX manual, set acronyms in
:>regular type.
:
: I happened to read Le Monde Diplomatique (in french!) recently. For almost
: all of their acronyms, they used Proper Noun Capitalisation. Thus: Opec,
: Nato, Unicef, Oecd, Aids. (but being french they gave initial letters of
: the french title of the organisation, so Otan and Sida rather than Nato
: and Aids.) I thought it looked great.
(Warning: OT)
The Guardian, however, has virtually abandoned capital letters. Its
laughable, self-appointed "style guide" now has the newspaper rendering
"Home Secretary" as "home secretary" and other horrors; affectations
that (as I have pointed out to them) serve simply to confuse the reader
and reduce the readability of the text. What particularly grates is
their insistence on calling the London Underground (colloquially) "the
tube" rather than "the Tube", even in headlines. For example, "Prescott
gives way in row over tube" appeared earlier this year. This might
cause titters among followers of recent British history in which
Prescott forcefully failed to give way in a row _with_ a "tube".
I predict that by the end of the century, the Guardian will cease to
bother with the tiresome business of capitalising the first letters of
sentences, pace many on Usenet and yoof in general. Then we can
dispense with the tiresome business of reading it.
--
YES I have a headache.
Tobias Wahl
I write those things in small text font
\newcommand{\cap}[1]{\small{#1}}
\cap{LQR}
This make the page look more homogenous. Furthermore I have the command
\newcommand{\capRB}[1]{\raisebox{1pt}{\small{(}}\small{#1}\raisebox{1pt}{\sm
all{)}}}
so that
\capRB{LQR}
prints the string LQR in small font and with round brackets around it which
are adjusted in height.
I use this command also for strings such as
\cap{NaUQ}
cheers
Tobias
"Charlie Zender" <zen...@removethisspamblock.uci.edu> wrote in message
news:3B0A98...@removethisspamblock.uci.edu...
Michael A. Miller
> I write those things in small text font
> \newcommand{\cap}[1]{\small{#1}}
An extra set of braces will restrict the \small to just the
\cap'ed text:
Rowland McDonnell
> Charlie Zender <zen...@removethisspamblock.uci.edu> wrote:
>
>
> > I'm honing a document which contains a multitude of acronyms,
> > i.e., collections of capital letters that usually each abbreviate
> > an entire word (e.g., DARPA or IBM).
> > Some periodicals, like the Economist, print acronyms in smallcaps.
> > Some books, like Kopka and Daly's LaTeX manual, set acronyms in
> > regular type. Is this just a matter of personal preference or are
> > there some guidelines when to, and when not to, set acronyms in
> > smallcaps font?
>
> Setting acronyms in small caps is a lot of work for little reward.
How do you figure out that it takes a lot of work?
> It gives your pages a more even grey appearance and the eye is not
> distracted by capitals popping up everywhere.
I call this a Big Win myself.
I've still not decided how to deal with acronyms myself, though. IBM's
not an acronym in my book, mind.
[snip]
Rowland.
--
Remove the animal for email address: rowland....@dog.physics.org
PGP pub key ID 0x62DCCA78 Sorry - the spam got to me
http://www.mag-uk.org
UK biker? Join MAG and help keep bureaucracy at bay
Rowland McDonnell
How so? Trademarks only affect the use of a name by way of trade as I
understand it. If you're referring to the group of Unix-like operating
systems - Linux, FreeBSD, and all that - well, using Unix rather than
the official trademark form strikes me as preferable because that way
the trademark holder has no grounds for suggesting that you're using its
trademark to refer to something other than the trademarked thing - does
this matter? I don't know, but still...
UNIX looks ugly to my eyes, and I usually see the name written as
'Unix', treating it as a normal (not regular, mind) English proper noun.
I reckon most common usage has to be at least thought about in cases
like this.
Charlie Zender
> On Tue, 22 May 2001, Charlie Zender wrote:
>
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>I'm honing a document which contains a multitude of acronyms,
>>i.e., collections of capital letters that usually each abbreviate
>>an entire word (e.g., DARPA or IBM).
>>Some periodicals, like the Economist, print acronyms in smallcaps.
>>Some books, like Kopka and Daly's LaTeX manual, set acronyms in
>>regular type. Is this just a matter of personal preference or are
>>there some guidelines when to, and when not to, set acronyms in
>>smallcaps font?
>>
>>As an informal poll, vote for the appearance you prefer:
>>
>>1. UNIX
>>2. \textsc{unix}
>>3. \textsc{Unix}
>>
>>
>
> Hi,
>
> first, I'm surprised by your example: "UNIX" does not seem to be
> an acronym, but simply a trademark ou brand name, which makes your
> poll strange to me :)
> Therefore, I would *not* capitalize "unix" ! May be the first letter, as you
> can consider it as a proper name.
>
Yes UNIX is the trademark, and, as pointed out in this thread, it's not
an abbreviation or an acronym. I agree it's more like a proper name.
> Second, there is a distinction between an acronym and an abbreviation:
> the acronym is an abbreviation that is pronounced as a word, and not spelled
> letter-by-letter (I hope i'm clear: USA is an abbreviation, NATO is an
> acronym). In french, both should be typeset with small caps, but the acronym
> comes with the first letter capitalized.
This is an interesting point. No one else seems to draw this precise
and firm a distinction. Thanks for pointing this out.
>
> In english, as far as I know (source: practical english usage, by Michael
> Swan), you capitalize all the letters (small caps?), and you can even write it
> with full stops (e.g. I.R.A.), although it is bulky and not very common. I
> could not found any reference to capitalizing only the first letter, even on
> acronyms that are proper names (e.g. NATO).
>
> Hope this helps,
>
> sL
> ----
> Excuse my french...it's my mother tongue.
>
>
--
Charlie Zender
I concede that UNIX was a terrible example to pick, OK? ;)
Thanks for the code, I'll take her for a spin...
Tim Vanhoof
> Tim Vanhoof <timva...@gmx.net> wrote:
>
> >
> > Setting acronyms in small caps is a lot of work for little reward.
>
> How do you figure out that it takes a lot of work?
You have to mark them up, don't you?
> > It gives your pages a more even grey appearance and the eye is not
> > distracted by capitals popping up everywhere.
>
> I call this a Big Win myself.
So do I. Those were two paragraphs, not a list of disadvantages. I use
small caps when I can despite the extra work.
Rowland McDonnell
> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
>
> > Tim Vanhoof <timva...@gmx.net> wrote:
> >
>
> > >
> > > Setting acronyms in small caps is a lot of work for little reward.
> >
> > How do you figure out that it takes a lot of work?
>
> You have to mark them up, don't you?
Well, yes, but that's not what I'd call a *lot* of work - extra effort,
but not *lots* of extra effort.
A trivial way of making the job pretty easy is something like:
\newcommand{\ac}[1]{\textsc{#1}}% ACronym
(assuming \ac isn't taken) which adds 5 characters to the typing load as
well as turning 'appearance' type markup into logical markup.
If you have a set of acronyms which you use a lot, something like:
\newcommand{\Darpa}{\textsc{Darpa}}
can be handy - I've used that latter technique myself on occasion.
> > > It gives your pages a more even grey appearance and the eye is not
> > > distracted by capitals popping up everywhere.
> >
> > I call this a Big Win myself.
>
> So do I. Those were two paragraphs, not a list of disadvantages. I use
> small caps when I can despite the extra work.
Righto.
Tim Vanhoof
> Tim Vanhoof <timva...@gmx.net> wrote:
>
> >
> > You have to mark them up, don't you?
>
> Well, yes, but that's not what I'd call a *lot* of work - extra effort,
> but not *lots* of extra effort.
>
> A trivial way of making the job pretty easy is something like:
>
> \newcommand{\ac}[1]{\textsc{#1}}% ACronym
>
> (assuming \ac isn't taken) which adds 5 characters to the typing load as
> well as turning 'appearance' type markup into logical markup.
>
> If you have a set of acronyms which you use a lot, something like:
>
> \newcommand{\Darpa}{\textsc{Darpa}}
>
> can be handy - I've used that latter technique myself on occasion.
I certainly wouldn't consider doing it directly.
This still has the disadvantage that it makes your TeX source more
difficult to read and IIRC things like detex will delete all your
acronyms from the text.
Are there any public domain fonts apart from cm which have proper small
caps?
Rowland McDonnell
> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
>
> > Tim Vanhoof <timva...@gmx.net> wrote:
> >
>
> > >
> > > You have to mark them up, don't you?
> >
> > Well, yes, but that's not what I'd call a *lot* of work - extra effort,
> > but not *lots* of extra effort.
> >
> > A trivial way of making the job pretty easy is something like:
> >
> > \newcommand{\ac}[1]{\textsc{#1}}% ACronym
> >
> > (assuming \ac isn't taken) which adds 5 characters to the typing load as
> > well as turning 'appearance' type markup into logical markup.
> >
> > If you have a set of acronyms which you use a lot, something like:
> >
> > \newcommand{\Darpa}{\textsc{Darpa}}
> >
> > can be handy - I've used that latter technique myself on occasion.
>
> I certainly wouldn't consider doing it directly.
>
> This still has the disadvantage that it makes your TeX source more
> difficult to read
Hmm... Only very slightly, and only from the point of view of someone
who's not the author. It's just yet another extra command if you ask
me. I don't know about anyone else, but I find that adding commands
like that make my source *easier* to read *for me* (which is what
matters to *me*), which is partly why I'm inclined to add extra commands
at the drop of a hat.
For example, my dtx files tend to contain these lines:
% \newcommand*{\packname}[1]{{\sffamily #1}}
% \newcommand*{\classname}[1]{{\ttfamily #1}}
% \newcommand*{\filename}[1]{{\ttfamily #1}}
which give me logical markup commands to typeset package, class, and
file names.
>and IIRC things like detex will delete all your
> acronyms from the text.
Well, yes - but detex removes a lot of stuff in any case.
> Are there any public domain fonts apart from cm which have proper small
> caps?
I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I'm not really clued up
on these things.