February 25, 2023, 6:30 PM ·
How should really we generate the identify of Walt Disney World’s 2nd topic park?
Is it Epcot? Or EPCOT? Disney has utilised both equally variations in the 40-yr history of the park. But the title dates back again before its 1982 opening. Walt Disney himself launched the time period, which he used as an acronym for Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow – the city that he wanted to establish at the coronary heart of what became the Walt Disney World Vacation resort in Florida. That Epcot arrived into becoming as an acronym allows make the scenario for typing it in all caps, but does not settle the scenario the way it would if the expression experienced been an initialism instead.Which delivers me to this flimsy excuse for a vocabulary lesson. Acronyms are a assortment of letters, usually initials, that are enunciated collectively as a word, these kinds of as NASA, laser, and scuba, Initialisms are a collection of initials that are enunciated as a string of letters, these kinds of as FBI, CIA, and WDW. Initialisms fairly considerably normally get composed in all caps (I can’t imagine of one that just isn’t, to be honest), although acronyms can go either way. Disney’s desire at the second is to design and style the park’s title in all caps, as EPCOT, whilst I have been utilizing Epcot listed here on Concept Park Insider. Why? My journalism geek training was to avoid gratuitous use of capitalization in words and titles, reserving all caps for initialisms and certain acronyms wherever people today usually made use of the all caps kind. NASA delivers a basic illustration of the latter, whilst laser and scuba exemplify acronyms that grew into lessen-situation use because so numerous – if not most – people today forgot that they began as a selection of initials. (If you are wondering, they are Self Contained Underwater Respiratory Apparatus and Light-weight Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.)When Disney made a decision a long time in the past that Epcot, the theme park, was just “Epcot” and no longer the Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow, I went with it and stuck with it, even immediately after Disney made the decision to bring back again the EPCOT styling. Now? I’m eager to consider transforming back again, way too.
The other popular example of an all-caps treatment in theme parks is Legoland, or LEGOLAND, as its owner Merlin Entertainments prefers to design and style it. The model identify Lego is actually an acronym, deriving from the Danish phrases leg godt, which translate to “engage in very well” in English, so styling the phrase as LEGO has some recognized precedent. But I’m not inclined to prolong that precedent to a new brand name shaped by appending the theme park favored “-land” to an additional brand identify. In other terms, I can be persuaded to switch to EPCOT from Epcot, but I’m not still completely ready to look at LEGOLAND rather of Legoland on Concept Park Insider.So how to decide this? I have preferred to set it to a vote. So you convey to me…As usually, thank you for input.* * *
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