Why does the BBC refuse to capitalize the letters in NASA as an acronym? Is it British grammar or do they not realize it's in all caps?
Acronyms
Use the abbreviated form of a title without explanation only if there is no chance of any misunderstanding (eg UN, Nato, IRA, BBC). Otherwise, spell it out in full at first reference, or introduce a label (eg the public sector union Unite).
Where you would normally pronounce the abbreviation as a string of letters - an initialism - use all capitals with no full stops or spaces (eg FA, UNHCR, NUT). However, our style is to use lower case with an initial cap for acronyms where you would normally pronounce the set of letters as a word (eg Aids, Farc, Eta, Nafta, Nasa, Opec, Apec).
[0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/news-style-guide/art...
"Use all capitals if an abbreviation is pronounced as the individual letters (an initialism): BBC, CEO, US, VAT, etc; if it is an acronym (pronounced as a word) spell out with initial capital, eg Nasa, Nato, Unicef, unless it can be considered to have entered the language as an everyday word, such as awol, laser and, more recently, asbo, pin number and sim card."
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-a
Informally, it's sometimes referred to as "vat", e.g. calling a tax inspector "the vat man".
If used in context, no one is going to get confused by either pronunciation though.
> Where you would normally pronounce the abbreviation as a string of letters - an initialism - use all capitals with no full stops or spaces (eg FA, UNHCR, NUT). However, our style is to use lower case with an initial cap for acronyms where you would normally pronounce the set of letters as a word (eg Aids, Farc, Eta, Nafta, Nasa, Opec, Apec).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/article/art201307021...