Well, my dad came close. As noted above, he was an early SCUBA diver, and also a pilot. A friend of his owned a seaplane, an old Republic RC-3 Seabee. They flew that thing around Lake Michigan, spotted wrecks, and dove on them, back in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Of course the RC-3 did have the capacity to land on a runway, so it wasn’t a true flying boat.
I noticed that a number of people (not just on this site) will ask a question, and if people tell them the answer and it’s something they already know, they get peeved, as if there has to be some other answer. Why?
I guess I’d have to agree with that, because it’s equally wrong There certainly is a difference between odd numbers and all numbers – even if you mean all positive integers. One is a subset of the other.
But I’d say you have it backwards. By one definition all acronyms are initialism. by another they are distinct, but I’ve never heard it used for initialisms to form the subset.
As long as it could land on water, I’ll allow it!
For the same reason that Navy SEALs and SUBMARINES are capitalized…you’re supposed to capitalize things relating to the sea
There was never a Family Ties where Mallory had to remember what “LASER” stood for.
At both the English-language newspapers I worked at in Thailand, the rule was if you can pronounce it like a word, then no all caps, such as radar, Nato, Aids and of course scuba. If you pronounce each individual letter, then all caps such as WHO. There were exceptions such as SEAL, to distinguish it from the animal, lest there be some confusion.
Wow. Is that a British English convention? Aids sounds like a breath mint. Nato sounds like a noxious food eaten in Japan. Anyway, that’s not the convention in the US. It would definitely cause confusion for the reader.
Then you already knew the answer. If it’s an acronym, some people will capitalize it.
On a fairly irelevant note, here’s the Revillos singing Scuba, Scuba with a stupid video! Only the first letters are capitalised (because it’s a song title) and no scuba gear appears in the video but it’s fun anyway!
What about the people who write LOGO in all caps?
Little known fact: originally the acronym was Self Contained Apparatus for Breathing Underwater, but it never caught on.
It caused no confusion whatsoever. I don’t see why it would.
Remember, in Doctor Who novelizations, it’s always TARDIS.
“Time And Relative Dimensions In Space? Sounds like someone REALLY wanted the acronym to be TARDIS.” It’s not complete. Should be TARDIS Machine, TARDISM. I like that better. Ism ism ism.
Even though I pronounce them as words, I write them as all caps such as NASA. This is especially true with acronyms that are indeed actually words like as HOG (Harley Owners Group); it cuts down on the confusion. Sometimes.
In the amateur radio community, one learns that many people write HAM in all caps.
It’s not an acronym and I don’t know why it is so widespread.
I wonder what kind of articles would leave room for mixing up the animals and the elite commando force.
Either I was misremembering their style – possible since these guys did not appear in too many Business stories, which was the desk I was on – or they changed their style since I left, because as you can see from this recent story, the diver is a “Seal.”
I see far too many people, when writing about cars, to capitalize HEMI. It’s not an acronym, it’s just shortened. Hemi.
Somebody should have told that to JFK Jr.