ISO in photography is a measurement of light sensitivity. The lower the number the less sensitive the sensor will be. A picture taken at ISO 80 will be very smooth, while ISO 12,800 will show noise or grain in the image. You use high ISO either because high grain is your artistic goal, or because you are taking a picture in low light and need high sensitivity to obtain an acceptable image.
ISO used to be called ASA, when the governing standards body was the American Standards Association. ISO standards are set by the International Organization of Standards, which replaced the ASA.
OK, with that out of the way, the purpose of this post is to complain about the name “ISO”. ISO claims it’s name is pronounced “eye-so”, not the initials “eye-ess-oh”. They claim ISO is not an acronym, because the entity is International Organization of Standards, which would result in an acronym of IOS. Further they claim their organization name is different depending on the local language of each country, and to avoid confusion they wish to be called ISO everywhere. The name ISO is derived from the Greek word “isos”, which means equal.
People, and I guess organizations, should be able to dictate what they want to be called. If I met someone and told them my name was Bubba, that’s what they should call me, even though it doesn’t say Bubba on my birth certificate.
But there are certain conventions that we all understand and live by. For example, proper names are not all in capital letters. If you are going to break those standards you need a good reason. It can’t be arbitrary. And it’s especially ironic to have normal naming standards broken by the International Organization of STANDARDS.
- They replaced ASA, which was not pronounced “ay-sah”, it was “ay-ess-ay”. Everyone was used to saying the initials ASA, and no confusion occurred as a result.
- No one’s name is all capital letters. No company name is all caps, either.
- A lot of companies are known by their initials, and some initials are pronounced as if they were words (NASA, FIFA, LIPA). But regardless of how people pronounce their initials, NASA’s name is National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The initials NASA are the first letters of each word in its name. Same with FIFA and LIPA.
- Despite what ISO claims, the name of an entity doesn’t change based on differences in language from one country to another. Pepsi is Pepsi in the US, in France, in Russia.
- If you want to call yourself by a nickname, and insist that the nickname is NOT your acronym, then spell it Iso, not ISO. That’s how names are written. Acronyms are written in caps.
All of that is up against the right of any organization to call itself what it wants, and spell it however they see fit. But I am going to keep calling it ISO (“eye-ess-oh”) for the following reasons.
- It keeps the tradition established by the ASA.
- There was a Monty Python sketch where Graham Chapman played a man called Raymond Luxuryyacht, but he pronounced his last name Throatwarblermangrove. Pronouncing ISO “eye-so” is not to that extreme, but it’s still silly.
- There is a Hebrew word “kitnyot”, which refers to foods that are not prohibited during Passover, but are traditionally not eaten during the holiday for reasons that no one remembers. Recently there was a ruling that kitnyot CAN be eaten since there is no obligation to follow a foolish tradition. Calling ISO “eye-so” instead of “eye-ess-oh”, just because the International Order of Standards can pick any nickname it wants, would be following a foolish tradition.
Update:
ISO was supposed to be derived from “isos”, the greek word meaning equal. But isos is pronounced “eee-sos”. In the US people pronounce ISO “eye-so”, but in Europe they pronounce it “eee-so”, in sync with the proper pronunciation of isos.
So … WTF. The International Organization of Standards adopted the nick name ISO in order to standardize the name they are called in every country, but the US and Europe still pronounce it differently???
Pronouncing the initials ISO as “eye-ess-oh” makes much more sense than trying and failing to standardize a name all over the world, especially when names are not spelled in all caps anywhere.
vegchili 