- From: Doug Jones <doug_b_jones@mac.com>
- Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 07:57:27 -0400
- To: Matthew Raymond <mattraymond@earthlink.net>, HTML WG Public List <public-html@w3.org>
On 2007 Mar 28, at 21:56, Matthew Raymond wrote: > > First of all, I've heard a lot of talk about Initialisms, and I've > also done a small amount of web research as well, and here's my > observations: > > 1) "Acronym" and "Initialism" are often treated as synonyms. Yes. Definition is from the New Oxford American Dictionary. initialism: an abbreviation consisting of initial letters pronounced separately (e.g., CPU). • an acronym. > > 2) "Acronym" is the most commonly used of the two terms and is often > applied to both acronyms AND initialisms. > > 3) The difference between an acronym and an initialism appears to be > entirely based on aural presentation. > > 4) Many terms are acronyms for some and initialisms for others. In > fact, > some terms, like "SQL", may be one or the other based on context > ("mySQL" versus "SQL Server"). > > 5) There are even hybrids between the two, such as JPEG and MS-DOS. > > 6) Both <abbr> and <acronym> are use so infrequently that they don't > crack the top ten elements list. (http://code.google.com/webstats/) > > 7) Acronyms are, in fact, abbreviations. No. Examples are mine. abbreviation: a shortened form of a word or phrase. Examples include Dr. (doctor), abbr. (abbreviation), WWW (World Wide Web) and UK (United Kingdom). acronym: a word formed from the initial letters of other words. Examples include radar (radio detection and ranging) and laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation). > > 8) The difference between <acronym> and <abbr> in HTML 4.01 is poorly > defined. Well, its technically correct but, like other things in the Spec, needs to be expanded to clarify actual intent. > > 9) Some of the confusion regarding <acronym> and <abbr> arises from > the > historical inability to use both element in the same browser at the > same > time. > > From the above observations, I draw the following conclusions: > > 1) Acronyms and Initialisms don't have sufficiently different > semantics > to make marking them up separately practical. To try to have a new > element (<initialism>) or to use attribute values ("normal", "acronym" > or "initialism") would cause an order of magnitude more confusion than > <abbr> and <acronym> are causing already. > > 2) Because of the above conclusion, it logically follows that it makes > more sense to have <abbr> and <acronym> than to have <abbr > type="normal"> and <abbr type="acronym">. > > 3) While <acronym> is redundant to <abbr> as defined, we may be better > served with a refinement of their definitions than the removal of > <acronym>, especially since <acronym> will still need to be supported > for backwards compatibility purposes. I agree, with 3), although not that the two are redundant. >
Received on Thursday, 29 March 2007 11:58:10 UTC