"Andrew C. Greenberg" <werdna at mucow.com> wrote:
	I'll own up to ignorance on this.  When did FORTRAN become Fortran?

>From the comp.lang.fortran FAQ (e.g. http://www.fortran.com/info.html):

	FORTRAN is generally the preferred spelling for discussions of
	versions of the language prior to the current one ('90').
	Fortran is the spelling chosen by X3J3 and WG5.
	
	ISO 1539:1991 and its ANSI counterpart X3.198-1992 consistently
	employ the spelling "Fortran" to refer to the language being defined.

You will, however, find a lot of references to "Fortran 77".
(Note that the current Fortran standard may be Fortran 95, I don't know
if F2k is out yet.)

	Is that a well-settled convention now?  Has BASIC become Basic as well?
	
>From the same question in the same FAQ:
	
		There was an effort to "standardize" on spelling
		of programming languages just after F77 becamse a standard.
		The rule:  if you say the letters, it is all caps (APL);
		if you pronounce it as a word, it is not (Cobol, Fortran,
		Ada).  See, for example, the definitive article
		describing Fortran 77 in the Oct 1978 issue of [CACM].
		The timing was such that FORTRAN got put on the standard
		itself, though many always after that have referred to it
		as Fortran 77.

So yes, I imagine the standard name is indeed "Basic", not "BASIC".
However, it is up to the particular programming language communities
whether they accept such a change; the Fortran community _has_ accepted
this change.  Whether the BASIC and COBOL communities have, I know not.