...and as far as full stops go, the modern trend seems to be to leave them out of sets of initials, even when they don't make an acronym. Hence BBC, ITV (just to show my scrupulous fairness, even though the Beeb is far better than its Johnny-come-lately rival) and TLA (Three letter abbreviation - see separate thread).

Some initials aren't even given as capitals - rbc for red blood cells for example.

What does annoy me, though, is turning acronyms into words without acknowledging that they're acronyms - aids for AIDS is the most common.

Steve