Re: acronym and abbreviation markup - insert full stops??

Hi David and all,

At 08:12 10/10/2005, David Woolley wrote:
<blockquote>

 > For example <acronym>B.B.C</acronym> for BBC.

To re-raise an old chestnut, BBC is not an acronym in the British
English definition of acronym.
</blockquote>

My own searches in British English dictionaries [1] showed that "the 
British English definition of acronym" does not exist. Most say that 
acronyms are "usually" pronounced as a word and add a reference to 
"initialism", but if "initialism" is not in the dictionary, the definition 
of acronym does not say anything about pronunciation (thereby implicitly 
blurring the distinction between acronym and initialism).

Regarding the insertion of full stops, my advice is to consult an 
up-to-date dictionary, just as for other issues of orthography.


[1] 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2005JulSep/att-0851/AbbreviationAcronym.html

Regards,

Christophe Strobbe

-- 
Christophe Strobbe
K.U.Leuven - Departement of Electrical Engineering - Research Group on 
Document Architectures
Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 - 3001 Leuven-Heverlee - BELGIUM
tel: +32 16 32 85 51
http://www.docarch.be/ 


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Received on Monday, 10 October 2005 08:07:27 UTC