The official Macophyte spelling guide...

[iGary]

Mac, not MAC.
.mac, not dot Mac or .Mac
iMac, not IMAC or IMac or Imac.
Power Mac, not PowerMac.
Mac mini, not Mac MINI or Mac Mini.
eMac. not EMac or Emac.
AirPort Express.
AirPort Extreme.
iSight, not ISIGHT, ISight, Eyesight, EyeSight or eyeSight.
iPod, not Ipod or IPOD or IPod.
iPod photo. photo, lowercase.
iPod mini. mini, lowercase.
iPod shuffle. shuffle, lowercase.
iPod U2 Special Edition.
iBook G4. Self explanatory.
PowerBook G4. PowerBook combined, b capitalized.
Xserve G5.
Xserve RAID.
30-inch Cinema HD Display.
23-inch Cinema HD Display.
20-inch Cinema Display.
PowerPC G5 Processor.
Bluetooth, not BlueTooth.
FireWire. Two words combined, W capitalized.
USB.
Kernel, not Kernal.
RAM, not ram (it's an acronym).
Darwin.
Mbps - Megabits per second
MBps - Megabytes per second (Megabits divided by 8)
Kbps - Kilobits per second
KBps - Kilobytes per second (Kilobits divided by 8)
GB - Gigabytes
MB - Megabytes (not mb--millibits don't exist)
KB - Kilobytes
Hz - Hertz (or cycles per second)
pixels, not pixals
MacBook Pro (not MACBOOK Pro, MACBook Pro)

Don't look like a noob. Use your friendly MacRumors style guide.

Add more as needed.

 

[ham_man]

So sad, yet so true that something like this needs to be written....

 

[Jaffa Cake]

Don't looke like a noob.

Well, if you're going to instruct people on their spelling...

 

[iGary]

Well, if you're going to instruct people on their spelling...

Edited. Just about done my morning coffee. Much more alert now.

 

[Jaffa Cake]

Edited. Just about done my morning coffee. Much more alert now.

Just teasing. How about .Mac as well?

 

[iGary]

Just teasing. How about .Mac as well?

I'll add it!

 

[EGT]

So sad, yet so true that something like this needs to be written....

Aren't we supposed to be intelligent enough to interpret the difference between "IPOD" and "iPod"?

 

[Applespider]

iSight, not ISIGHT or ISight.

Not Eyesight, EyeSight or eyeSight either

I don't mind .mac since that's how it appears on the logo on the homepage.

 

[crap freakboy]

To be honest my grammar is so bad that getting any of those wrong is the least of my problems. If its that important to you then fair enough. MAC, mac or Mac, I'm sure the vast majority of people will know what you are talking about.

 

[Mr. Anderson]

personally, I could really care less - except for the MaCrUmOrS type crap. Thankfully there isn't that much at all. If you understand what it means, it should be fine. Not that I don't appreciate it being correct - its just that you might not be a noob and misspell something by mistake. Having the guide is great, just don't be over zealous by trying to enforce it.

D

 

[witness]

I personally don't agree with mobile phone text/SMS style abbreviations because I think that they are unreadable.

But I don't think that spelling/capitals are so important so long as the reader can understand what was written.

I do try and capitalise the correct letters in names, but I often make typing mistakes (as I'm sure others do to), but in the end does it really matter? This is a social forum, we're not writing a book.

 

[mad jew]

Thanks iGary, it's good to get this sort of stuff official (I'd say get it down on paper but...)

I actually didn't know about .Mac since the homepage has simply .mac and I also had no idea that Power Mac was two words, I'd always figured it was one like PowerBook.

One question, how about the shortening of gigabyte? Is it GB or gig or both?

 

[jeremy.king]

Personally, only the first one even remotely touches a nerve with me.

and it's kernel, not Kernel...it is not a proper noun.

 

[feakbeak]

While I agree it is nice to use the correct spelling of the product names, I don't understand those who get so livid about it. Often these people could care less if you have a grammatical error (as we all do in some of our posts) but they will flip out if someone says PowerMac instead of Power Mac. I just don't get it.

If small errors like this keep you awake at night you may want to seek professional help, or at least pick up another hobby.

 

[Diatribe]

personally, I could really care less - except for the MaCrUmOrS type crap. Thankfully there isn't that much at all. If you understand what it means, it should be fine. Not that I don't appreciate it being correct - its just that you might not be a noob and misspell something by mistake. Having the guide is great, just don't be over zealous by trying to enforce it.

D

wHaT iT iS rEaLlY nOt MaC, cUz tIs iS hOw i'D rItE iT aNd i wAs gOnNa bUy tEh MaCmInI, i hEaR iT's tEh rOxXoRs cAn sOmE1 tElL mE wHy iT dOeSnT rUn wInDoWs nOw tHaT bE tEh bOmB.

 

[mkrishnan]

Pr0n not p0rn. I got busted on this recently.

 

[bousozoku]

The errors bother me quite a lot but it's not so much the newbies--it's the people who have had Macs (or other computers) for 20 years and still haven't gotten things right.

iGary, you might add these:

Mbps - Megabits per second
MBps - Megabytes per second (Megabits divided by 8)
Kbps - Kilobits per second
KBps - Kilobytes per second (Kilobits divided by 8)

GB - Gigabytes
MB - Megabytes (not mb--millibits don't exist)
KB - Kilobytes
Hz - Hertz (or cycles per second)

pixels, not pixals

 

[shambolic]

Just teasing. How about .Mac as well?

Even Apple isn't consistent when it comes to .Mac / .mac - in text it's usually the former, while the logo uses lower case...

 

[Thom_Edwards]

Kbps - Kilobits per second
KBps - Kilobytes per second (Kilobits divided by 8)

GB - Gigabytes
MB - Megabytes (not mb--millibits don't exist)
KB - Kilobytes
Hz - Hertz (or cycles per second)

i always thought 'k' (1000) was lowercase, not upper. not saying "i'm right, you're wrong," or vice versa; just saying i always thought that.

 

[mkrishnan]

i always thought 'k' (1000) was lowercase, not upper. not saying "i'm right, you're wrong," or vice versa; just saying i always thought that.

I think people should be at least a little understanding about things like that. Even Wiki uses two different notations (kB and KB) on the same page. And I've seen kb a lot more often than kB....

 

[PlaceofDis]

neccissary to have? no. nice to have? yes

sure this isn't something we can enforce, and i know my spelling is horrid at times (sorry dont use Safari) but it is irritating at times to see things spelled totally off base

 

[bousozoku]

I think people should be at least a little understanding about things like that.
...
And I've seen kb a lot more often than kB....

Even disregarding whether kilo should be K or k, kb and kB are two different things entirely.

The capital signifies that the number is whole, not fractional.

DL (decalitres, tens of litres), are not the same as dL (decilitres, tenths of litres), for instance.

 

[runninmac]

um... i suck at spelling... thanks they should make this a sticky so i can refer back to it

 

[emw]

Use your friendly Macrumors style guide.

Wouldn't that be MacRumors?

 

[skubish]

wHaT iT iS rEaLlY nOt MaC, cUz tIs iS hOw i'D rItE iT aNd i wAs gOnNa bUy tEh MaCmInI, i hEaR iT's tEh rOxXoRs cAn sOmE1 tElL mE wHy iT dOeSnT rUn wInDoWs nOw tHaT bE tEh bOmB.

youknowyouareoldwhenyoubecomeasticklerforspelling.as
longasthepostiseasytoneeditdoesntreallybotherme.unlikethis
postwhichisdevoidofspacingpuntuactionandcapitalization.