What Nutmeg Can Tell Us About Nafta

nytimes.com

27 points·benbreen··8 comments

This article seems like it's somewhat lacking focus. If anything, it's a brief foray into history of monopolistic wars that are the anti-thesis of trade agreements. What, indeed can Nutmeg tell us about, NAFTA though? Not much.

I am from the state (Kerala) which is called the "Spice Garden of India". Little did I know about the history of Nutmeg that grows in abundance at my home in my state.

This article tells us little about Nafta.

Also, it's written 'NAFTA'.

Not sure if it is aberrant for the NYT, but many British publications' style guides (The Economist, for one) dictate using this form for acronyms which are pronounced as words, as opposed to initialisms. So 'FBI' vs. 'Nafta'.

This is reasonably well-known thing for the NYT, see the FAQ regarding acronyms: http://afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/23/faqs-on-st....

> Also, it's written 'NAFTA'.

The NYT style guide dictates that acronyms of five letters or more be capitalized as proper nouns (ie, first character capitalized, with the rest lowercase).

Seems very confusing and muddling to me, despite the appeal to "consistency". Sounds like 20th century style guide, not aligned with the need for specificity in the Internet age.

> Sounds like 20th century style guide, not aligned with the need for specificity in the Internet age.

Ironic that you say that! The AP styleguide (which is not the NYT style guide, though they are similar) now recommends that "Internet" be lowercased (ie, no longer treated as a proper noun).

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