Gentle rules for avoiding humiliation and embarassment

[Eclipse]

I really dislike it when people, especially members, refer to SEE-AY-PEE as "KAP".

Worse, in the last few months, Google has started interpreting searches for "Civil Air Patrol" as also being for "CAP" and bringing up hats.

eBay has been doing it as well.

[Jaison009]

I hate that as well. When I am on EBay I put "Civil Air Patrol" and it narrows significantly. Google, not so much. 

I really dislike it when people, especially members, refer to SEE-AY-PEE as "KAP".

Worse, in the last few months, Google has started interpreting searches for "Civil Air Patrol" as also being for "CAP" and bringing up hats.

eBay has been doing it as well.

[Critical AOA]

As an aside, CAP, as used to refer to our organization, is NOT an acronym. I learned that WIWAC. You say each letter. One of my former wing commanders used to give a practical demonstration with his ball cap, when he heard people using CAP as an acronym. [Got my Nomex on!  ]

WIWAC - is that pronounced weewack?   

Yep, when I was a cadet and even for years afterwards, I always heard C.A.P.  Now I hear cap from most members.   

[Майор Хаткевич]

As an aside, CAP, as used to refer to our organization, is NOT an acronym. I learned that WIWAC. You say each letter. One of my former wing commanders used to give a practical demonstration with his ball cap, when he heard people using CAP as an acronym. [Got my Nomex on!  ]

WIWAC - is that pronounced weewack?   

Yep, when I was a cadet and even for years afterwards, I always heard C.A.P.  Now I hear cap from most members.

CAP irritates me to no end. We are not "Kap", "The KAP", "KAP members".

It is done one letter at a time, so "See Ay Pee" and so on.

As for WIWAC, it's sort of like "lol" to some people. Some say "El Oh el, others say it as "lol". For me, Weewack beats W - I - W- A - C by a mile.

[a2capt]

[UH60guy]

13. Contrary to popular belief, (I can't think of any other reason) there is not a shortage of punctuation. Use them.

Sometimes I think we have a surplus of punctuation. My pet peeve is the growing number of places that I find apostrophes used to make things plural.

As in: "CAP member's never commit punctuation infraction's."

For double demerits, the offenders often fail to maintain consistency in their error's and seemingly randomly apply the apostrophe like this.

[ProdigalJim]

^^^^

As a professional words guy, this drives me especially nuts. It has always been a rather common error, but its prevalence seems to have increased and I think I know why: predictive typing and texting. A generation of young adults has grown up with predictive typing on their various devices and those systems invariably insert apostrophe S after [darn] near anything. Thus, people have become inured to it and gloss over it when they see it. I can't tell you how many interns have told me over the years that "the whole apostrophe rule thing is SO confusing!"

Oy gevalt!

[a2capt]

Seems to matter not anymore, a left over from the era of mechanical type setting, mono spaced fonts, and readability. Offering the eyeballs a breaking point.  But a funny way to look at the debate.

[Майор Хаткевич]

I always did one...no one told me to do it differently. Then I met two-spacers...

[MIKE]

I learned two spaces after a period, and one space after a comma.  Might be one of those MLA stylebook rules or something.

[SarDragon]

I learned two spaces after a period, and one space after a comma.  Might be one of those MLA stylebook rules or something.

Did you learn that associated with a typewriter, or a computer? Typewriters are fixed pitch, computers are not, hence the change.

[UH60guy]

I'm very much in the one-spacer camp. APA and Chicago style manuals back me up, probably others too.

What causes me great nerd rage in working in the Army- the Government Printing Office style guide states that one space shall be used. However, the Army (apparently we ain't gub-ment) regulation governing writing (AR 25-50) apparently knows better and dictates two spaces.

My private little shadow war involves deleting those extra spaces, in flagrant violation of Army Regulations, from every piece of correspondence I write or edit.

[JeffDG]

I learned two spaces after a period, and one space after a comma.  Might be one of those MLA stylebook rules or something.

That's the way I learned it too...and still use.

[Al Sayre]

Me too.

[Eclipse]

There's only two choices.

The wrong way...

...or two spaces after a period.

[Luis R. Ramos]

I learned when typing one Masters thesis, two spaces after periods. Then I started other Graduate college, and studied MLA and APA styles.Which stated basically that when typing up manuscripts with a typewriter you had to use two spaces after a period, but when computers you can use only one. The same resources also stated that typewriters and printing presses made difficult using italics, you underlined titles. However because of advances in printers what was before underlined can now be italicized only. And that is how I have been doing it since 1988...

Flyer

[Jaison009]

Actually the latest edition of APA requires double spacing and two spaces after a period.  :angel:. Hopefully after my MBA is done in February I will never have to use it again.

I'm very much in the one-spacer camp. APA and Chicago style manuals back me up, probably others too.

What causes me great nerd rage in working in the Army- the Government Printing Office style guide states that one space shall be used. However, the Army (apparently we ain't gub-ment) regulation governing writing (AR 25-50) apparently knows better and dictates two spaces.

My private little shadow war involves deleting those extra spaces, in flagrant violation of Army Regulations, from every piece of correspondence I write or edit.

[Panache]

You would think that the two-spaces-after-a-period camp would be the ones with the spear.

[Eclipse]

You would think that the two-spaces-after-a-period camp would be the ones with the spear.

Bring correct gives their sword force power!

[UH60guy]

Actually the latest edition of APA requires double spacing and two spaces after a period.  :angel:. Hopefully after my MBA is done in February I will never have to use it again.

I'm very much in the one-spacer camp. APA and Chicago style manuals back me up, probably others too.

What causes me great nerd rage in working in the Army- the Government Printing Office style guide states that one space shall be used. However, the Army (apparently we ain't gub-ment) regulation governing writing (AR 25-50) apparently knows better and dictates two spaces.

My private little shadow war involves deleting those extra spaces, in flagrant violation of Army Regulations, from every piece of correspondence I write or edit.

Yeah I saw that after I wrote the post- When I did my Masters thesis I was on I think APA version 4, I can't remember- It was 2009. I could have sworn I saw it in there for a single space. Well, I did single space at the time and still got the degree

However, that thesis was an exercise in another grammatical problem: "Data" is plural, folks. You say the "data are" or the "data indicate" if you want to be correct. My thesis prep class drilled that home. I admit, I have to say "dogs" in place of "data" under my breath when reading it to get the tenses straight in my mind. After all of that, the thesis committee told me to change it all to "data is" and the "data indicates." Well, it was either fight to my dying breath to be right on another series of revisions, or as the saying goes "cooperate to graduate."

Pride? Swallowed. Degree? Attained.