Proper capitalization of commonly used acronyms and initialisms

I was always under impression, that acronyms ought to be written all caps. However reading BBC News site very often I see some of the common acronyms written as proper names (first cap). For example "Nato" instead of "NATO".

I know that BBC is quite strict in proper English usage, so what would be the reason behind this?

Solution 1:

The BBC is not as rigid about these matters as some other bodies. For example, it was recently written that the BBC had standardised on "CE" rather than "AD" for denoting years -- but in fact the BBC simply doesn't have a set of rigid standards for such things.

The Guardian Style Guide, however, states:

Use all capitals if an abbreviation is pronounced as the individual letters: BBC, VAT, etc; if it is an acronym (pronounced as a word) spell out with initial capital, eg Nasa, Nato, 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. Note that pdf and plc are lowercase.

There is no universal rule; the Guardian's style guide is just one set of rules you can choose. The important thing is to be consistent.

Solution 2:

The BBC News Styleguide (March 2003, pdf) says:

Abbreviations & acronyms

One should not aim at being possible to understand but at being impossible to misunderstand. Quintilian

Just because you know what NACRO means, and the people you’ve discussed the story with know what it means, it doesn’t follow that the majority of your audience know. Assume nothing. Some short forms such as NATO, CIA, BBC, ITV,AA and RAC are well known and need no explanation, but think twice before using others. If you introduce the likes of BECTU, HSBC, RNIB, RTZ,ACAS and the BMA into your scripts without saying what they mean, you are virtually inviting some listeners or viewers to turn off. It’s usually better to give the full name of an organisation at first reference and then use its short form later.

It doesn't explicitly say to capitalise or not, but all these examples are given in upper case, including NATO.

As slim pointed out, the Guardian style guide says to always take an initial cap for pronounced words:

Use all capitals if an abbreviation is pronounced as the individual letters: BBC, VAT, etc; if it is an acronym (pronounced as a word) spell out with initial capital, eg Nasa, Nato, 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. Note that pdf and plc are lowercase.

This sometimes looks a bit strange in print, with unfamiliar acronyms rendered as words, even when the organisation in question and most people use all capitals.

My advice is to follow your style guide (if you have one), or decide per acronym whether to capitalise based on how the organisation or owner writes it, and based upon popular usage. And thereafter be consistent.

NATO themselves use all capitals, and this is also the most common:

But the BBC have been using Nato more recently. Perhaps they have decided it is well known enough that it can be written like this, in a similar way that LASER and RADAR have become naturalised as laser and radar.