Tuesday, April 19, 2011

An MBA or a MBA

I have always struggled a bit whenever I have to say I have an MBA degree, or I have a MBA degree.  I always ended up saying I have an MBA degree, because it sounds more correct, but I never understand why. Today I came across a useful and delightful style guide from the UK newspaper Guardian which explains that abbreviations should be guided by sound (of a vowel). So in the case of MBA, it sounds like "em-bee-ay" so we should put 'an' in front of the abbreviation, but 'a' in front of Master of Business Administration degree.  (I should have known that, because I do know that I have to put 'an' in front of a silent H.)

Then I scrolled down the page and realized I have not been using my capitalization correctly.  When I scrolled to 'no doubt that' and 'no question that', I have thought the two meant the same. What a mistake!  To quote: "No doubt that, no question that are opposites. 'There was no doubt that he was lying' means he was lying; 'There was no question that he was lying' means he wasn't, although the two are routinely confused."  (I was careful with my usage of single or double quotation marks here.)

I think we can all learn some from the guide or be reminded of some.

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