Re: Providing the expansion or explanation of an abbreviation

Thanks, Christophe!


On 2/21/06 5:38 AM, "Christophe Strobbe"
<christophe.strobbe@esat.kuleuven.be> wrote:

> Hello Loretta,
> 
> At 15:19 19/02/2006, Loretta Guarino Reid wrote:
> <blockquote>
> In the How To Meet 3.1.4 page, we separated the technique for deciding what
> information to provide for an abbreviation from the technique for
> associating it with the abbreviation. The technique for the former is
> 
> http://trace.wisc.edu/wcag_wiki/index.php?title=Providing_the_expansion_or_e
> xplanation_of_an_abbreviation
> 
> We received a number of comments in the survey about the explanation of what
> information to provide for abbreviated forms:
> 
> http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/35422/31feb8/results
> 
> I was wondering if you could help us with this technique, since your
> understanding of the issues is so much deeper.
> </blockquote>
> 
> For the examples with Latin or with no expansion, the lists of examples
> were only meant to illustrate the category instead of how to provide the
> explanation. I have added a paragraph that clarifies this. Since the actual
> techniques are now separate from 'deciding what information to provide',
> this seemed the most logical thing to do.
> 
> I have also moved example 4 (ADA) to the top of the examples section
> because providing the expansion is probably the most common case and
> readers will probably expect it as a first example.
> 
> In the survey, I think Jens Meiert misunderstands the meaning of Ms and Miss.
> 
> The paragraphs I added address the issues raised by Yvette, Becky and John
> 
> Yvette's first comment and Michael's second comment touch on the subject of
> what can be considered as an abbrevation: if no expansions exist, are Ms
> and OK really abbreviations? I disagree with Michael about 'Ms'. Ms is
> marked as an abbrevation in dictionaries, and OK is the shorter form of
> okay, so it's OK to list them in this technique.
> According to Michael's comment, SIL and IMS could be excluded from the
> scope of the technique. I think that ignoring them in the technique is not
> the best way to do this. It would be better to modify the example. I added
> a sentence saying: "For this category of examples, a short explanation of
> what organization is or does is sufficient," but if we follow Michael's
> reasoning, we should write "For this category of examples, an expansion or
> explanation is not necessary." What do you think?
> 
> Regarding Michael's comment about initialisms: ADA is an initialism, but
> the more general term 'abbreviation' is used instead.   I'm not inclined to
> changing this because different dictionaries provide slightly different
> meanings for the terms 'acronym' and 'initialism'. The definition of
> acronym in the current WCAG glossary even draws attention to this
> 
(http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/WD-WCAG20-20060117/appendixA.html#acronymdef)>
.
> 
> Gregg's comment on example 4 referred to the ADA example. Perhaps this
> could be reworded: 'Some abbreviations have more than one meaning, and the
> meaning depends on the context. For example, ADA means "American Dental
> Association" in one context and "Americans with Disability Act" in another.
> Only the expansion relevant to the context needs to be provided.' (See Wiki.)
> 
> To address Gregg's last (editorial) comment, I adapted the expected results
> to the template directions.
> 
> I hope this helps.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Christophe
>

Received on Tuesday, 21 February 2006 15:46:48 UTC