I kind of like it, actually. The diaeresis does serve a useful orthographical purpose, after all. Consider the words “coop” (for chickens) and “coöp” (cooperative). Without consistent use of the diaeresis, a sentence like “The farmer went down to the coop,” would be ambiguous.
Of course, most house styles get around this by spelling “coöp” as “co-op,” but that seems more objectionable to me, since the long form of the abbreviation doesn’t use a hyphen.
And, to note, The New Yorker also uses diaereses in coöperative, and, if I recall correctly, reëxamination.
No, not really. USB stands for Universal Serial Bus and HDMI stands for High-Definition Multimedia Interface. There’s no apparent reason why you would use periods in one and not the other. But the Times does.
Actually, it does completely explain U.S.B.
It doesn’t *seem *to completely explain HDMI, but that’s a different issue. I haven’t noticed this particular occurrence myself. I might guess that they consider a hyphenated phrase like “high-definition” to be a single word. There doesn’t seem to be a separate entry for “HDMI,” but perhaps there’s a rule that I haven’t found yet that applies. Or perhaps it’s an exception of some kind.
Unless we get confirmation from a Times editor that “HDMI” is indeed their style and why, I refrain from judging it as illogical, inconsistent, or otherwise.