Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Tetsu]

In each set of words, which is correct, smalls or capitals?
These words are usually written as shown in the one-digit-number entries (for example, 1.) and are related to the WWW.

1. HTTP
1-1: hypertext transfer protocol
1-2: Hypertext Transfer Protocol

2. HTML
2-1: hypertext markup language
2-2: Hypertext Markup Language

3. CSS
3-1: cascading style sheet
3-2: Cascading Style Sheet

Thanks!
_________________
Tetsu

[Jintii]

Generally, we use capitals (as in examples 1-2 and 2-2) to indicate that we are spelling out words which we will refer to as acronyms in the rest of our document.

For example:

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTP) is a ....

[Tetsu]

Hi Jinti

Thanks for your kind reply.
I understand you well. I agree with you.

Could I ask a little more?
I'd like to know which they are, proper noun or common noun.
If they are proper noun I have to, I think, write them in capitals always and if they are common noun I can use either one, capitals or samlls.
Which are they?

Thanks!
_________________
Tetsu