Hi, Ardith Hinton - Alexander Koryagin!
I read your message from 01.10.2022 01:56

 ak>> Which way in writing the word "fidonet" is the most correct:
 ak>> 1. fidonet
 ak>> 2. Fidonet
 ak>> 3, FIDONET

Thanks for all who answered! I am writing a reference manual where I describe how to write messages to FIDO properly (using my program) :) Time has changed, and Google give us now strange answers to the question "what FIDO means" ;) But probably it is important to know in case FIDO is an abbreviation.

 AH> This apparently simple question has brought all sorts of
 AH> interesting people out of the woodwork. Give yourself a gold
 AH> star... [chuckle].

We should blame the love for the subject. ;)

 AH> #2 seems to be most common nowadays. I hear what Nil is saying, and
 AH> remember when the /N/ was usually capitalized. But native speakers
 AH> of English tend to shorten or simplify words according to what
 AH> seems easier... whether or not it makes sense to others. Either way
 AH> I'd capitalize the /F/ here because, as the name of an
 AH> organization, "Fidonet" is a proper noun.

Yes, probably another words as Usenet, Internet give us the idea in general.

 AH> You may notice #3 as a user on someone else's system where the
 AH> names of various echoes are spelled entirely in capital letters.
 AH> Dallas & I do much the same. According to the way we were taught,
 AH> the names of books & magazines are underlined when you're writing
 AH> things out by hand or using ye olde antique typewriter which allows
 AH> you to type more than one character in the same space. With typeset
 AH> material &/or articles found on the Internet such names generally
 AH> appear in italics. The objective, as I see it, is to make the title
 AH> stand out from whatever you or I have to say... and we do the best
 AH> we can. When you see me spell ENGLISH_TUTOR or FIDONEWS or
 AH> FIDONET.TELEGRAM in capital letters, I'm sure you'll understand I'm
 AH> treating these echoes as I would magazines.... :-)

IMHO, FIDONET looks in the most spectacular way. It twice as heavy than other variants, a real signboard. ;-)

Bye, Ardith!Alexander Koryagin
english_tutor 2022

---