This has promoted some discussion in our house *g* We think that mostly in Australia, acronyms have capitals, unless they have sort of become words, like Qantas (Queensland And Northern Territory Air Service) and quango (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation). DH thinks he has seen Unicef, and having typed it, I agree. But it is always ASIO (Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation) and ACTU (Australian Council of Trades Union) and CSIRO (pronounced sigh-row and standing for Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation).

Does that make the answer maybe?

Chris, I would agree with Kath. I had never heard of TARP, possibly because it is so 'new' but think this is an eg. of shoddy journalism, or perhaps the writer dictated his piece over the phone? I have noticed in ALL our newspapers from local rag (of the Springfield Shopper variety) to the bastions of what-was Fleet St that mistakes are far more evident. Is this down to the computer age, too much speed, too little sub-editing? Is it the same in the US/Aus/Canada/everywhere?

Oh yes Vee, I am always picking up mistakes in the paper. There are often grammar mistakes, and I often notice that what they have written isn't what they really mean, because of the poor positioning of the words (of course I can't think of an example at the moment). I don't think that studying English is a requirement for journalism courses any more, although since grammar doesn't seem to be part of English lessons it probably doesn't matter ........

I've seen the same decline in our local papers, as well. My theory is that they rely on spell-check (always a bad idea) rather than an editor these days.

I have seen in England (and maybe the UK in general) that media refers to AIDS as Aids a lot.

I thought it interesting.

Liz/lemonhead AIDS is always referred to as 'Aids' over here.
The mega-bank (until the recent crash) an amalgamation of the Halifax Building Society and the Royal Bank of Scotland which gives us the acronym HBOS, is pronounced H-boss.
We were treated to the spectacle of the CE's of these banks crying crocodile tears before a Parliamentary Committee saying how sorry they were for the loss/mismanagement of their clients money and please may they now have their huge bonuses. Hollow laugh. ;-(