Re: ABBR vs. ACRONYM

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Charles McCathieNevile" <charles@w3.org>
To: "Emmanuelle Gutiérrez y Restrepo" <sinarmaya@retemail.es>
Cc: "Ann Navarro" <ann@webgeek.com>; "Kynn Bartlett" <kynn-hwg@idyllmtn.com>; "Gregory J. Rosmaita" <unagi69@concentric.net>; "WAI Interest Group Emailing List" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2000 11:24 PM
Subject: RE: ABBR vs. ACRONYM

> Acronym and abbreviation add something very important that is completely
> lacking in span - information about what kind of information is being marked
> out (specifically, something that is an abbreviation or an acronym).
> 
> If the two things are equivalent in HTML then there are a few
> possiblities. One is to remove one of them, and in this case I would suggest
> abbr, as the one less supported.

I actually think removing acronym, as an acronym really *is* a type of abreviation. And if we (people on the WAI-IG list) can't agree on acronyms are and what's just abbreviations, I very much doubt "ordinary" people will understand the difference. Since abbr and acroynm will be rendered the same on all UAs, I really see no reason to keep both in the HTML specification, especially since noone seems to know the difference (and the definition is not the same in various languages/countries).

-- 
Karl Ove Hufthammer