TARDIS or Tardis or tardis?

[SiHart]

Over on the Vervoid thread, Ant Cox is berating the use of Tardis rather than TARDIS as the way of spelling the name of the Doctor's time ship. But which is right, hmm?

So I ask you, which one do you find acceptable? How do you write the name of Gallifreyan Time Travel capsules?

[Awesome Wells]

Can open ... worms everywhere!

I've been investigating this topic recently; some interesting stuff on Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym_and_initialism

Should it -- like laser -- perhaps even be written as 'tardis' (lower case) nowadays ...?

*awaits bombardment of wrath*

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

Personally I still write TARDIS but as all the word is descriptive of a vessel type rather than just being the name of only the Doctor's ship if it's not treated as an acronym it should probably be tardis. Although as it's the last of it's kind in existence* it could revert back to being unique name as Susan originally suggested back in the days when the Doctor used to refer to it as "the ship" in which case Tardis would be a valid alternative.

*(or is it? We never found out what the Master did with his TARDIS before wiping his own memory, infact has he had one since the time he was exterminated on Skaro?)

[Nyder]

All Caps (or should that be ALL CAPS) is how I like it!

[Nyder]

And another can of worms....should it be referred to as The TARDIS, or just TARDIS??

[duncan]

I must admit that I always used to write it as TARDIS but I seemed to be one of the few that did that so I often just use Tardis these days.

[Dino]

I've been conditioned thanks to the novels and comics of spelling it in capitals.
I don't like change!

[SiHart]

And another can of worms....should it be referred to as The TARDIS, or just TARDIS??

It's always been The TARDIS for me. Referring to it as TARDIS is just wrong- Peter Cushing or Jon Pertwee in The Paradise of Death wrong!

[Jon Masters]

I've always gone for TARDIS - indeed I've commented before on how much it p!$$es me off when the Radio Times uses the Tardis version.

[Stuart Wallis]

If spelling TARDIS in capitals is good enough for Ian Levine, then it's good enough for me. But then he spells every third word in capitals, so what do I know?

[SiHart]

So if TARDIS becomes Tardis or tardis should UNIT become unit?

[Jon Masters]

NEVER !!!

[Dirk Gently]

I think I'm correct in saying I always put TARDIS & probably always will do. And likewise UNIT will always be written so.

If you think about it though it doesn't really work as acronym does it?
I mean if you are talking about UNIT then saying it in full or as an acronym works, but TARDIS doesn't.

E.G, "I worked for UNIT" or "I worked for United Intelligence Task Force" works but "I worked on the TARDIS" is fine where as the full version, "I worked on the Time And Relative Dimension In Space" is just nonsense.

Therefore it probably should be Tardis as it seems to have become the name of the Police box shaped time & space vehicle that the Doctor travels in.
Food for thought.

[P-Bal]

Dr Who fans, they worry so much!

[Anthony Williams]

It's TARDIS!

[SiHart]

Dr Who fans, they worry so much!

These things matter! Well, a little bit. Ish.

And that's DOCTOR Who.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

if we're going with the OED then it would have to be Tardis.

[Awesome Wells]

This is getting a bit anal now, but as UNIT is a single entity (like NATO or the [The?] EU) in British English it's UNIT, American English it's U.N.I.T. and in Australian English "that posh Pom bastard with the 'tache and his mates".

TARDIS is tardis if we're talking about one of the hundreds of time machines made on Gallifrey, the (The?) TARDIS or T.A.R.D.I.S. if it's specifically the name of the one Doctor Who travels in.


Or something. Agh, I don't really know.

[Antony Cox]

I think I'll stay out of this...

[Dirk Gently]

I see. You poke the hornets nest but let everyone else get stung!

[Antony Cox]

Indeed, Monitor - indeed!

[Rob McCow]

Puts a different spin on part one of The Chase though:

DALEKS: "Tardis! Tardis! Tardis!"

BARBARA: "Doctor! They said TARDIS!"

[J.R. Southall]

These things matter! Well, a little bit. Ish.

And that's DOCTOR Who.

It'll always be TARDIS to me, and I'll always be annoyed when I see it written otherwise.

As for Doctor/Dr Who: it should never be abbreviated to Dr as the word "Doctor" in the name Doctor Who has become a pronoun, and you can't abbreviate a pronoun in the same way you can a title that goes before someone's name.

You wouldn't go to the cinema to see Cit. Kane or C. Kane, for example. And you wouldn't turn on ITV to watch Dr Martin.

[Dave Tudor]

It's definitely TARDIS, for me - it's an acronym, so it has to be. However, that is of course taking a prescriptive, rather than a descriptive view of language...

[Awesome Wells]

The Tardis - and all the other tardises - have been on Nato, Unit and the USAF's radar for some time now.