- From: Alan J. Flavell <flavell@a5.ph.gla.ac.uk>
- Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 00:23:42 +0100 (BST)
- To: WAI Guidelines List <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
The problem with ACRONYM is that there is no longer any agreement on what the term means, as was brought home to me only too clearly when the drafts for HTML4.0 were being discussed. According to Modern English Usage 2nd edition, an acronym is a pronounceable word formed from the initial letters of a phrase. Thus, a speaking machine presented with <ACRONYM>UNESCO</> knows that it is expected to pronounce these initials as a word, instead of spelling them out as initial letters as with <ABBREV>IBM</>. Do authors agree? Absolutely not. They now use the term "acronym" to refer to any kind of initialism, whether normally pronounced or whether spelled out. And so, the markup seems to have become useless. Best regards
Received on Tuesday, 27 April 1999 19:23:47 UTC