Pc

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From the BBC site:"Pc Ian Broadhurst, 34, was shot dead on Boxing Day in Leeds while his colleague Pc Neil Roper, 45, was badly injured and is recovering in hospital.The shooting happened after Pcs Broadhurst and Roper stopped a stolen BMW car in Dib Lane in the Oakwood area of the city."Are "Pc" and "Pcs" standard capitalization and punctuation in BrE?

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]From the BBC site: "Pc Ian Broadhurst, 34, was shot dead on Boxing Day in Leeds while his colleague Pc ... in Dib Lane in the Oakwood area of the city." Are "Pc" and "Pcs" standard capitalization and punctuation in BrE?[/nq]
The truth is that there *is* no standard capitalisation in BrE. The Guardian, who generally embrace lower case as if they were running out of ink, use 'PC' for this. The Times do too, because it's more their kind of thing.
I've written here before about the great punctuation massacre thirty odd years ago when the Brit Civil Service made a conscious decision to encourage the omission of full points from abbreviations on economy grounds. The practice is quite widespread, but many would still write P.C. here.
John Dean
Oxford
De-frag to reply

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]From the BBC site: "Pc Ian Broadhurst, 34, was shot dead on Boxing Day in Leeds while his colleague Pc ... in Dib Lane in the Oakwood area of the city." Are "Pc" and "Pcs" standard capitalization and punctuation in BrE?[/nq]
Not to me. "PC" would be the correct form. P and C are the initials of Police Constable. In BrE is not usual to include full stops (periods) in initialisms. Writing "P.C." would likely cause confusion to readers.

The PCs in the news item were members of the West Yorkshire Police. The latest press release by the Force is at
http://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/new/pressreleases/sept-dec2003/ldsofficershooting.htm

The form "PC" is used throughout.
(There is a typo on that page. In the first sentence "PCs" should be "PC".)

Peter Duncanson
UK
(posting from a.e.u)

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]From the BBC site: "Pc Ian Broadhurst, 34, was shot dead on Boxing Day in Leeds while his colleague Pc ... in Dib Lane in the Oakwood area of the city." Are "Pc" and "Pcs" standard capitalization and punctuation in BrE?[/nq]
No, this is a reprehensible habit that emerged only a couple of years ago and appears to be ever more common. One often sees abbreviations this way, in particular acronyms such as NATO are rendered as Nato. I blame the abominable WORD spell checker myself. GRR! Or is it Grr!!

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Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]From the BBC site: "Pc Ian Broadhurst, 34, was shot ... Are "Pc" and "Pcs" standard capitalization and punctuation in BrE?[/nq]
[nq:1]No, this is a reprehensible habit that emerged only a couple of years ago and appears to be ever more ... such as NATO are rendered as Nato. I blame the abominable WORD spell checker myself. GRR! Or is it Grr!![/nq]
In general I would wish to see initialisms as all capitals. I am only mildly offended by acronyms such as NATO being written as Nato. The rationale for this is that as an acronym is an initialism that is spoken as a word there is a (weak) justification for treating it as a word for purposes of capitalisation.

Peter Duncanson
UK
(posting from a.e.u)

Usenet · Answer

Peter Duncanson filted:
[nq:1]In general I would wish to see initialisms as all capitals. I am only mildly offended by acronyms such as ... is spoken as a word there is a (weak) justification for treating it as a word for purposes of capitalisation.[/nq]
I smell slippery slope..
You have to stop these people before they start writing things like "We all went to Ihop for breakfast"..r

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Peter Duncanson filted:[/nq]
[nq:2]In general I would wish to see initialisms as all ... for treating it as a word for purposes of capitalisation.[/nq]
[nq:1]I smell slippery slope..[/nq]
Seems to me that "Aids" is quite common in BrE, but "AIDS" is the standard in AmE.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]From the BBC site: "Pc Ian Broadhurst, 34, was shot dead on Boxing Day in Leeds while his colleague Pc ... in Dib Lane in the Oakwood area of the city." Are "Pc" and "Pcs" standard capitalization and punctuation in BrE?[/nq]
I'd be much less surprised to see PC and PCs. It strikes me that it was written on one of those word-processors that thinks it understands the rules of capitalisation better than humans do.

-ler

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]No, this is a reprehensible habit that emerged only a ... abominable WORD spell checker myself. GRR! Or is it Grr!![/nq]
[nq:1]In general I would wish to see initialisms as all capitals. I am only mildly offended by acronyms such as ... is spoken as a word there is a (weak) justification for treating it as a word for purposes of capitalisation.[/nq]
Well said! But I think Dave's wrong to blame the Word spell-checker. There has long been a designer-led assault on capital letters, as on italics and quotation marks (and even question-marks and hyphens). British road-signs, for example, are now mostly in caps and l.c.; and The Guardian, to my mind the best-looking British newspaper, is quite happy to have you read a sentence twice in its avoidance of the older-established conventions. I never reached the heights of the Grauniad staff, but I still remember frustrating disputes with designers elsewhere in which it was quite clear that the other side just couldn't see how readability worked: they deal in images and "image" most of the time.
Mike.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]From the BBC site: "Pc Ian Broadhurst, 34, was shot ... Are "Pc" and "Pcs" standard capitalization and punctuation in BrE?[/nq]
[nq:1]I'd be much less surprised to see PC and PCs. It strikes me that it was written on one of those word-processors that thinks it understands the rules of capitalisation better than humans do.[/nq]
It's standard UK practice, as used by the Civil Service and taught in secretarial schools, for full points to be omitted in abbreviations: BBC, PhD, Mr etc.. just as punctuation is now generally omitted in typewritten addresses and dates. Private individuals, however, often stick to the old ways they learnt as children.
The lower case in PC/Pc seems odd to me, perhaps because Police Constable in full would have both P and C capitalised.
Alan Jones

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]It's standard UK practice, as used by the Civil Service and taught in secretarial schools, for full points to be ... generally omitted in typewritten addresses and dates. Private individuals, however, often stick to the old ways they learnt as children.[/nq]
It seems clear that many BrE writers go further and omit nearly all punctuation marks. A typical BrE business letter might look like this:
Dear Dr Aman
Lorem ipso facto blah blah yadda yadda yadda badabuum badabing.

Yours sincerely
A W Cooper
The AmE equivalent would be:
Dear Dr. Aman:
Lorem ipso facto blah blah yadda yadda yadda badabuum badabing.

Yours sincerely,
Anthony W. Cooper
(Traditionally, in business letters, a colon follows the "Dear (name)", while in personal correspondence a comma is used. I gather that in BrE a comma was traditional in both cases, until such punctuation usages disappeared or were banned.)

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