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How about proper grammer such as how to write "aka" or "US" (with periods or without?).
Or perhaps explain in layman's terms how to capitalize titles without going into things like pronouns or adverbs. You seem to know everything so I figure you're the perfect person to ask.
asked by Alexander Mark 3 months ago
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brad4l says
Well, I certainly don't know everything or even all that much in the grand scheme of things, but I am pretty good with grammar.
To answer your first question, using periods is often a matter of preference and either is correct. More and more, people are not using periods though. The main thing is to be consistent with your choice, so don't write an article that uses U.S. once and US another time.
The title capitalization can be a little tricky, but the main thing is to capitalize the first and last word. Otherwise, you can capitalize most words. Conjunctions(and, or,) prepositions(after, among,) and "to" should NOT be capitalized.
Also, it is "Grammar" not "Grammer" ;)
Hub Llama says
Actually, you will find that for formal or academic writing, you should always use periods for any abbreviation including a.k.a. and U.S. This is especially true when referencing any organization such as U.S. District Court, or U.S. Senate.
A note regarding aka is that if writing for a newspaper or magazine, or anyone else that wants "AP Style," the AP Stylebook says to use aka with no periods or spaces, and notes that this is an "exception to Websters".
For titles, just don't capitalize the,of, and, or for, (unless they are the first word) and you will be right 99% of the time.
patful says
Just a quick comment on American English: we like to say something as quickly as possible. A new term enters our vocabulary and we shrink it as soon as we can. Example: in the early days of the U.S. space program, we heard about the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It didn't take long for us to crunch it into NASA. "Technical" becomes "tech". "Text messaging" becomes "texting".
TARP was the acronym (a word created out of the initials for something) for a recent government aid program. I can't even remember what the letters T and A and R and P stood for.
When an acronym has been made into a recognizable word, you don't have to use the periods any more. But US or U.S., as the previous writer said, can be acceptable. Just be consistent in which one you use.
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