Man, why am I tempted to post this? I'm either crazy or bored. But here goes:


MINI vs Mini? It's Mini, folks, no matter what the marketing weenies at BMW want you to think. A corporate entity does not get to rewrite the rules of grammar and usage. According to most commonly accepted rules, anything that's in all capital letters is, by definition, an acronym, like FIAT, which is what those cars where called when that company was in its early years If you must differentiate, think of them as BMC Minis and BMW Minis.


Hey, I'm not making this up. You can do the research, or you can surrender independent thought and let BMW succeed in telling you how the English language works.


OK, I'm now going to shrug into my old Nomex racing suit, so let the flames begin. Please don't bother telling me I'm stupid. I already know that, having proven it conclusively many times to the satisfaction of almost everyone.

 

NOPE

MINI:


or



And this is a Mini



it matters . . .

 

I'm of the opinion that since it's their brand name they can expect it to appear however they want. If they wanted it to be "MiNi", I'd do that too. It's like naming your kid... For better or worse, if you capitalize their name in a way that isn't grammatically correct under the standard rules of capitalization, I'm still going to write it that way since that's what you named him or her.

Names don't have to follow the normal rules. My $.02.

 

goodness, the "MINI vs Mini" debate is almost just as bad as the "Beemer vs Bimmer" debate BMW people have......

.....who cares?

 

Capt_bj is right...

 

The thing is for Bimmer and Beemer does matter. It's the difference between the car and the motorcycle.

Sent from me being awesome around my MINI!!

 

watch out for the grammar ****....

 

The new ones are MINIs. The classic ones are Minis. Period.

 

make it simple, 'mini'

 

Someone needs to spend a little more time in their MINI and stop worrying about such things.

 

by the way

I'm bi

bi-Minual



Virginia Pilot 29 Sept 2006



********
p.s. if you were ever a sailor ... the Captain is ALWAYS right.

That's the nice thing about being Captain . . . .

(quiz question worth 3 points ... from what movie????)

 

Considering how big minis have become, maybe "MINI" is more appropriate than "Mini"

 

Well, while I see and can appreciate JonT's point I think evolution of languages is always a dead debate. As many linguist will get all specific with grammar not too many will recognize that languages are inevitably evolving unfazed by most knowledgeable linguist. This is just the plain truth as no one, and I mean no one, speak or write the way people did 50 years ago or 2000 years ago. There is no better rule in languages than what is commonly used.

The MINI versus Mini is the same as attempting to prevent people from saying: " Did you google it?". Where a name has now become a verb.

But further more, in today's world the strength of a product is often tie to the strength of its brand and thus through the power of graphic and fonts many names are becoming logos. This is very much the case of MINI. So if it may ease JonT's frustration with bad use of grammar perhaps one need to understand that MINI is no longer a word and never will be an acronym. It is a brand, an icon, an image, simply a shape that stays more easily in people's mind. If anyone knows this company I sometime design kitchen product for a company named OXO based in New York. OXO is not a name nor it is an acronym. It never has been from the very beginning. And I am certain there are many other examples that would illustrate this point...

No need to get hell bent about this. So JonT, you certainly are not crazy, and I can't speak of wether you are bored or not, but what is certain is that you need to take a little distance from this, acquire an open mind, and enjoy the freedom of multiple view points because there is nothing that will stop what is inevitably a simple matter of time and evolution

 

But.....the R50/R53 Mini was really a 'Rover Mini' which is what the 'R' number stands for and was mostly designed/developed by Rover engineers in the UK...until BMW decided to split from Rover just before launch.


1 0ff Rover Mini prototype before became BMW Mini:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...-bmw-mini.html

Former Rover Engineer on new MINI Development
'a former Rover engineer tells at first hand the role Rover had to play in the development of the new MINI' :
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...velopment.html

 

Interesting! So that where the "R" comes from. I'm not sure it makes it very attractive

So in a way I own a B59 not R59

 

This ^

 

I don't think the same. Mini Classic even the Rover MINI is other concept. But, the BMW-Mini first and second generation (topcoat first gen.) is much more MINI than F56 from my point view, is a MINI neo-Classic more functional.