[Tagging] Business names in capital letters

[Paul Allen]

On Mon, 30 Dec 2019 at 00:02, Jarek Piórkowski <jarek at piorkowski.ca> wrote:

> I think this comes down to OSM's "use the commonly used name"
> guideline (or "common usage" guideline) which I don't think has ever
> been firmly defined. As I understand it's always been on a "you know
> when you see it" basis, and exceptions and rules established one by
> one.
>

+1

 We have to keep in mind that as I understand it, BBC's
> editorial policy is to title-case names or acronyms that are
> pronounced as a word rather than spelled out in letters (so "Nato" and
> not "NATO" because they don't say "enn-eh-tee-oh"), but perhaps that's
> a decent guideline for brands anyway.
>

Years ago, acronyms were left in upper case until they'd become accepted as
common words.  So, eventually, "radar" and "laser."  Unless those were
acronyms of proper names, when they retained upper case.

My impression is that the BBC avoids all-caps whether it's an acronym or
an initialism.  The only exception they make is for their own name.  The BBC
appears to be more concerned with appearance (with least effort) than
correctness.

Appearance is of concern in long runs of text.  All-caps STANDS OUT too
much.  Which was why, sometimes, small caps was used, but that also doesn't
look good.  Good typographers would often switch to all-caps in a smaller
size,
LIKE THIS (maybe, depending what your mail client does).  That's too much
effort,
these days, so people (even the BBC) use Aldi rather than ALDI or ALDI.

Shop/business names on a map are NOT long runs of text where a word in
all-caps
or small-caps causes a visual clash with adjacent words.  It's not a
problem to have
ALDI or TESCO on a map.  We don't need some way of switching to small caps
or a smaller typeface because there isn't going to be a visual clash that
requires
those things.

That said, on the ALDI UK website, only the logo depicts "ALDI."
Everywhere
else on the page that the company name is rendered as ordinary text it is
"Aldi."

-- 
Paul
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