Re: RGSG - Gnome v GNOME

[Frederick I Gleef <gleef capital net>]

I've split my responses by topic, so that the threads make sense and the
messages are not as long.

On Sun, 2 Aug 1998, Tom Vogt wrote:
> Gleef <gleef@capital.net> wrote:
>
> > - Gnome
> > + GNOME
> 
> I have used "Gnome" throughout the  document because that's the way it is
> written on www.gnome.org
> 
> shouldn't be a problem to sed it, but at the moment, until it's clear which
> one is considered "right", I'd like to leave it that way.

Looking at www.gnome.org, an informal count seems to me that it is written
"GNOME" about 3/4 of the time, "Gnome" almost 1/4 the time, and "gnome"
the remaining little bit.

I will admit that "Gnome" is marginally more readable.  GNOME, however, is
gramatically correct, and will encourage people to ask what it stands for 
(GNU Network Object Model Environment).

Dan's counterexample of Defcon is irrellevant, since it is A) Not an
acronym of the same sort as GNOME, it is the mushing together of two words
(Defense Condition) and B) Properly written DefCon.

A counter-counter example of widely used long (5+ characters) acronyms
are: BASIC (Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), COBOL
(COmmon Business Oriented Language), FOLDOC (Free On-Line Dictionary of
Computing), and PCMCIA (People Cannot Memorize Computer Industry 
Acronyms:-).

I would say that "GNOME" is appropriate when talking about the project,
compliant apps, etc.  "Gnome" is appropriate when talking about very short
mythical beings with beards.  One should use "gnome" when talking about
specific things where case sensitivity could be an issue (eg.
www.gnome.org, the gnome-core CVS package, etc).

-Gleef